Candyman1

+1 Thanks for posting

Market cap currently is 3.5 billion for earnings guidance in 2024 of $695.

Guidance: The following table* is based on Atlas' current expectations for the years ending December 31, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024. Revised Guidance Metrics (in millions of US dollars) 2020 Actual 2021 Guidance(1)(2) 2022 Guidance(2) 2023 Guidance(2) 2024 Guidance(2) Revenue(3) $ 1,421.0 $ 1,585.0 $ 1,745.0 $ 1,920.0 $ 2,215.0 Operating expense 275.0 339.0 380.0 430.0 510.0 G&A expense 65.0 97.0 99.0 102.0 106.0 Operating lease expense(4) 151.0 156.0 155.0 125.0 115.0 Adjusted EBITDA(5) 924.0 993.0 1,111.0 1,263.0 1,484.0 Adjusted Net Earnings(6) 311.0 440.0 535.0 605.0 695.0 Interest expense(4) 192.0 205.0 210.0 250.0 350.0

Prem bought $150 million of FFH stock, but I get it, he does not care about the stock price. lol

https://assets.empirefinancialresearch.com/uploads/2021/08/HCI-Presentation-Phase-2-Partners.pdf Typtab

Can you link the article where Damodaran mentions this please?

No need to change the narrative for FFH, the current narrative is doing just fine. What more can we want? Digit, a hard market, fast growing insurance businesses, decently positioned equity book, etc. We are getting a narrative where the BV per share is going to be above 600 USD by year end. If at some point we get an IPO listing for Digit, it might be lights out. As I said before, Prem's reputation is in the dumps. The dumber they think he is on this board, the more bullish I get.

From the MKL call. We've realized significant premium growth across both our Insurance and Reinsurance operations. At the same time, we've achieved double-digit rate increases in Insurance and Reinsurance. Most importantly, we see continued runway to capture strong growth and price increases, throughout the remainder of the year. Earned premiums were up 16% in the quarter and 14% for the six months, due to continued premium growth across multiple quarters. Premium growth in both periods was driven by continued strong new business growth along with the impact from rate increases across several product lines, most notably in our professional liability and general liability product lines. As discussed in prior quarters, we continue to see favorable rate environments within most of our product lines, with the exception of workers' compensation. As we enter the third quarter, we see continuing pricing momentum in almost all lines. Our insurance rate increases continue to average in the low-double-digits. Jeff Schmitt Hi, good morning. Just looking at growth levels and rate levels in the insurance segment, professional liability, general liability, you've been compounding rates for several years now. I presume your rate adequacy have been for some time. But are you seeing any signs of increasing competition there or do you think the market is still kind of rate efficient? I mean it seems like a good opportunity to continue expanding your margins there. Richie Whitt Hey, Jeff, yes, rates have been very good in professional and casualty. And I do think we – I think we've been at rate adequacy for quite a while. I do think there is concern in the industry around just what may happen with claims inflation, social inflation and things of that sort. And so I think that has kept pressure on rates. I think also just the fact that it takes a lower combined ratio today to generate acceptable returns, given the interest rate environment. So I think there's a lot of factors at play. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, professional liability and casualty, where Markel is really made its name over the decades. I mean that's where we have always performed extremely well and we like that business and we like to grow when the opportunity is there. So Rates continue to be solid. I think as other people have said, I think they've plateaued but we don't see them falling off, which is nice to see. So those are the areas that we are most comfortable and have seemed to be most profitable for Markel over the years and we're going to continue to push forward hard in both those areas both on the Insurance and Reinsurance side.

Funny, that is exactly what my boss told me about FFH when I owned it because of the CDS before it made a big move.

A. So I should just have bought the SPY at 30 times plus the shiller PE to see it go to a higher valuation? If you have the kind of foresight, why then didn't you buy AMC? That went up more than all the other stocks you mentioned. Investing to me is not just about how much does some other stock/asset go up in the future. My goal is to also wonder how much can this go down. If I am wrong on the SPY and we get some tech/economic recession I have way more downside with SPY I believe than I had with FFH at $300 USD. I looked at the IPO of Facebook and remember telling friends that I thought the runway for Facebook was insane. And still did not buy because I was afraid of the downside if Facebook turned out to be a dud. Imagine what could happen if Netflix doubles its amount of subscribers from the current 207 million and is able to increase its pricing by $2 a month? All very much possible I believe, but what happens if I am wrong. And do not think if I am right that Netflix subscriber growth is going to double in a straight line. It might struggle for some time and then growth might pick up again. Remember that Amazon was down 80% in the tech bubble. Investing through the rear view mirror is a lot easier than when looking through the windshield. B. "It is just cheap." That is not what we were saying ever. The situation was that Prem bought $150 million USD in stock and there were good signs for a hard market. Also, it was trading at a very cheap valuation in absolute terms and on the basis of comps, and that I believed that end 2021 we would have a significantly higher book value per share. Read Vikings posts again if you do not believe me. He has been preaching about FFH for a long time. C. This idea that stocks should move upon earnings is not my experience. I did pretty well during the mortgage crisis. I did not foresee the crisis way ahead, but I realized sooner than most, because of the obvious data I was seeing in housing data in MBS, this stuff was bad. I shorted financial companies and also owned FFH back then and kept wondering why others did not realize that FFH was about to make a killing on these CDS. I had to sit there for a while before the stock started moving with my boss complaining unendingly. Often it requires it to be super obvious before investors act. Like saying that the book value per share is going to be $600 is not enough, FFH must have published a book value per share of $600 plus before investors pay attention. Most investors out there, even professional fund managers, want certainty and do not delve into things like people do on this board. That brings me to the best quote I ever heard about investing .... "you always make more money when things go from truly awful to merely bad, than when they go from good to better." People want to buy when things are going good which will always be reflected already in the price and hope things will go better. Well I think we bought FFH at a valuation that reflected awful expectations.

Good luck on that one. What I know is that Digit seems well run, is in a fast growing insurance market and is gaining share quickly while not doing stupid stuff like for example LMND is doing. I would not be surprised if Digit in ten years turns out to be way more successful than we all imagined. I remember reading the Facebook IPO prospectus and thinking that the runway for Facebook is massive. And I did not buy it. Well I think the runway for Digit could be massive too.

Book value per basic share at June 30, 2021 was $540.62 compared to $478.33 at December 31, 2020 (an increase of 15.2% adjusted for the $10 per common share dividend paid in the first quarter of 2021).

Never get why people get so riled up about other investors. Nor do I look up to other investors. What Einhorn does is not my issue, arrogance or not. I have always thought Prem was not as good as at times in the past people professed, but he surely ain't that bad as some on this site make it out to be. (Comparing him to Buffett is also stupid. No investor should be compared to Buffett ever. Buffett is an insane talent that others do not have. Just reading about his lessons doesn't make you as great.) Anyway, Prem is surely good enough of a CEO to be buying FFH at about 0.70 times 2021 end year book value per share. My rule is that you own FFH when everyone thinks Prem sucks and make sure you don't own it anymore when his status is that of a deity. I would not be surprised that his public status completely changes again after Digit files for IPO. Given the amount of frustration professed on this board about Prem I feel encouraged owning FFH.

From the Chubb release: ""We are capitalizing on a strong commercial P&C pricing environment in most all important regions of the world. Overall rates increased in our North America and international commercial P&C businesses by 13.5% and 16%, respectively, and were well in excess of loss costs. From everything we see today, I am confident these market conditions will continue."

From the WRB release: Average rate increases excluding workers' compensation were approximately 9.7%. The Company commented: Rate increases continued to outpace loss costs, further solidifying our current rate adequacy. As more products achieved or exceeded our target rate levels, our attention turned to exposure growth and business expansion. We expect this growth and rate achievement will contribute to additional underwriting profits as they are fully earned.

I know I brought this up before, but really think we are missing the point here somewhat discussing if the $47 hits in Q3 or Q4. The real issue to think about more is what will Digit trade at when it goes public. I have gone through the LMND filings and on first sight it looks like Digit is just better positioned than LMND. The insurance market in India is growing way faster than in the US, with larger population, higher GDP growth, higher percentage of population relying on cellphone, etc. And already making money. LMND has a 6.5 billion market cap now. Also VC valued Digit at 3.5 billion, I assume they think they can get a higher price too. CEO has mentioned going public too. Imagine if Digit goes public at $7 billion or higher. (I would not be surprised if that would be the case.) At $7 billion we are talking about $115 more in book value per share.

Makes one wonder what Digit's EV would be if they took it public.