Jump to content

moody202

Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    178

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by moody202

    Guess Meaning of Mohnish's New License Plate

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Self driving cars? I doubt that. My concern with self driving cars is that they could probably be hacked and that would prevent me from buying one even if I could.

     

    I can't wait to get one. If my computer can be hacked and my financial institution can be hacked, I should be ok with the car getting hacked.

     

    Upendra

    What's your due diligence process?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I try to do as much research outside of what is presented in the sec filings as possible. Google goes a long way, as does talking with company sales reps and wholesale/retail distributors. Then I pretend I'm a customer of the industry and see if I would use the company vs a competitor, and why. Supplement that with the Ks/Qs/proxy and conference call transcripts and I think it's a decent approach. I also run through a checklist to make sure I haven't missed anything obvious. My checklist combines fisher, buffet and munger, and then all the reasons past investments of mine failed.

     

    How long does it take you to complete your research?

    Guess Meaning of Mohnish's New License Plate

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    And I think that Barra probably is the right person to make sure that this change occurs.  She's like the Moynihan of GM -- at least, that's the hope.

     

    Not a ringing endorsement some in this board would say (not me as you know).

     

    I actually think Mary Barra is behind the ball. She better start doing a better job.

     

     

    Thanks for those links Plan! It does sound like she is behind the ball on this big time, and selling cars is not like getting people to deposit money in a bank. She needs to be good on the PR front whereas Moynihan didn't need to be good at PR to turn BAC around, he needed to get them out of their legal issues. I don't know if I'd be buying a car from a company with endless recalls.

     

    Give her some time.  Let's see how she proceeds after all of the recalls have been vomited out.  We're judging her too quickly.

     

    Fair enough.

     

    Isn't she the product of the culture we are talking about changing?

    Mohnish Pabrai (Dalal Street) 13F HR

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I recently watched a video where Pabrai talked about building a business and he briefly mentioned that he was in the process of buying an insurance company with other investors. My first thought was that this could be his source of permanent capital similar to Greenlight Re, Third Point Re, and ofc Berkshire but I couldnt find anything on google and he didnt really say a lot about it.

     

    Does anybody know more about that?

     

    Here you go:

     

    http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/dhandho-holdings!/

     

    Thank you!

     

    This could be the reason why he reduced his portfolio holdings.

    College Savings for Kids

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Here is an "odd" question for you...

     

    Is college even going to be worth it in the distant future?

     

    How much will it likely cost when your children are ready?  I know several people who are sending kids to school now and will be paying (borrowing) $100k+ for an undergraduate degree.

     

    Would that money be better spent buying your children a business?  Income properties?  Something else?

     

    Just something to consider...

     

    These are all good points but its hard to put an exact value on college education. My belief is that you have do some things in life based on gut and common sense, not just ROI. Here's what a wise man said "Not everything that can be measured matters and not everything that matters can be measured"!

     

     

    Blackberry: Why the Shorts and Analysts Have it Wrong

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Thanks sleepydragon for the GS report. I am having a hard time with their assessment for couple of reason

     

    1 - It's hard for me to put a 2.1B value on the patents. BBRY's patent's are only potentially valuable to a very small set of companies and as more time goes by, the value of these patents goes down.

     

    2- It's ridiculous to compare WhatsApp valuations to BBM. First, they operate in completely different market segments. I use WhatsApp with lot of my friends on it. They probability of these folks switching to BBM is less than .001%. BBRY is so uncool in the consumer space. Also -- just because FaceBook shelled out 19B for WhatsApp doesn't mean that's the true market value and other companies would have paid the same. Facebook is just desperate right now as people are moving off to other solutions.

     

    To me the hope for BBRY is in the MDM solution and QNZ software. However, MDM seems to be only 65M in revenue right now and I haven't taken the time to find QNZ numbers but suspect it's not huge.

     

    Yes, I can come up with $4B value based on current situation but not too much higher unless a better picture emerges with MDM and QNZ solutions.

     

    John Chen's simple plan to save BlackBerry

    in Fairfax Financial

    Posted

    Like Blackberry, a few years ago The Brick was seen to be in its death throes and many thought the company was down for the count. Fairfax stepped in with financing, appointed Bill Gregson as CEO, made some major changes and had The Brick back on its feet within a couple of years.

     

    I have every confidence, despite what many here may think, that John Chen is a key step in the rescue and reformation of Blackberry.

     

     

    I hope you are ultimately right and RIM turns things around, but I would suggest that the Brick and RIM ran into drastically different problems.

     

    In the case of the Brick, their business model is to sell crappy furniture to middle and lower income Canadians who are financially strapped and mathematically challenged.  During the period that I followed the Brick, they basically broke even on the furniture, but they made decent profit from financing and extended warrantees.  The Brick ran into trouble due to the financial crisis.  Their market was sound, and their business model was sound (even if it is slightly off-putting), but they hit an air-pocket for a couple of years when we were slammed by the Great Recession.

     

    Blackberry is a different beast.  At an industry level, people are buying as many smartphones as they ever have.  However, consumers have collectively decided that they hate Blackberry's products and have switched to devices of other flavours.  This is not just a temporary market disruption caused by the financial crisis.  This is a broad-based  consumer rejection of Blackberry's products.  In my opinion, fixing Blackberry's problems will be much more difficult than the Brick, because Chen cannot simply sit tight and wait until the economy turns around and people once again start buying crappy furniture on credit.  No, if Chen fixes Blackberry, it's because he'll have reoriented the products in a way that consumers appreciate.

     

     

    SJ

     

    Great points SJ. However, if you hear and read John Chen, he is not banking on a turnaround in consumer business. His focus seems to be on making BBM the secure messenger of choice for enterprises, making the Blackberry platform a viable mobile device management platform in enterprises (compete against Airwatch and few others) and making QMX a viable platform for connected cars and in-car entertainment. The sense I got was Chen's believes they have already lost the consumer market and no point continuing to throw good money after bad in this segment!

    Questions to Prem at AGM

    in Fairfax Financial

    Posted

    2. Is FFH still promising 15% annualized returns or is size a barrier? This one if for you Gio :-).

     

    I will answer this one! ;D

    Today FFH’s equity is $7.2 billion. If it compounds at 15% for the next 10 years, its equity will become $28.8 billion. If it compounds at 15% for the next 20 years, its equity will become $115.2 billion. At that point, if it sells for 1.4 x BV, its capitalization will be 1.4 x 115.2 = $161.3 billion. Little more than half what BRK is selling for today. Besides, at that time I guess there will be many trillion dollar companies (markets will be much larger)… Therefore, no, I don’t think size will be a serious obstacle to compound at 15% annual going forward. :)

     

    Gio

     

    That tell's us it's feasible from Market Cap standpoint. However, does FFH still have the ability to compound at 15%?

×
×
  • Create New...