bizaro86

Anyone have the full list of 30 or know where I can see it? I have an rbc brokerage account as well

I didn't own TC pre-spin. I don't like the long-haul gas assets at all. I think it's possible they end up stranded as gas goes to the west coast and low prices suppress production.

For sure. Top 10% or 1% or 0.1% doesn't really matter.

I bought some after the spin. I think the dividend is too high and would prefer they lower it for some debt reduction. But there are 3 pipelines with scale out of western Canada, and they own 1. My macro forecast is that (1) there will never be another one built and (2) oil sands production will keep growing even if slowly, and will not decline for decades. (1) and (2) imply strong demand for a finite resource (egress capacity). TMX coming online was a downside for these assets, but its not going to get repeated and the industry is growing into the new capacity.

I personally find reports like these useful for framing my personal situation (even though I'm sure their accuracy is low). Basically, as a reminder to live with gratitude for the circumstances and advantages that have allowed me to end up where I am. The exact details of whether I have more money than 98%, 99% or 99.5% of the other people on earth doesn't seem hugely important. But remembering that just about everyone else has it harder than me is a good reminder if I'm ever feeling down.

The other long term solution is to put the water back where you found it - ie, into the same formation. That's what most conventional fields do, because there is generally a big benefit to using the water to waterflood. Now, extremely tight formations make that more difficult, but I have a feeling it gets figured out before exporting brackish water to other states.

The type of person who would pull 30mm to the side would never have yolo'd from 80k to 300mm in the first place. Because it was also insane not to dial back the risk everywhere along the way, including at the 80k level.

I think the optimal play there (if it had been publicly owned) would have been SEC whistleblower. Pays out a portion of fines.

If the person had a process I could understand I'd do so with at least a segregated portion of my funds. I'd definitely be very interested in seeing the picks for further research. If it's someone posting publicly I echo the requests for a link (posted or by PM!)

I think you'd be more likely to see a big buyback than a spin. The next time there's a big market crash maybe just buy $100B of BRK...

I think it's at least as likely that Brookfield took advantage of Cockwell here. While the $17 he paid was market price, I think it was quite overvalued at the time. It was propped up by an unsustainable dividend in a market with low interest rates. Cockwell was buying it for his son, a professional forester, so may have been less price sensitive. Five years later they still trade at $17, after a structural change in New Brunswick timber pricing structure and the carbon credit announcement. I think the intrinsic value has gone up quite a bit since then, but the stock price hasn't moved, partially because it was overvalued at the beginning. This was getting propped up by its unsustainable dividend and Brookfield sold it to an insider who wanted (imo partially for non-economic reasons). I don't think the Cockwells are saints by any means, but I don't think their ownership is disqualifying. Especially in a thread about yield vehicles - I think they're probably par for the course among self interested real estate managers. They're not the Bakers from FRPH but they aren't an RMR entity either.

The Cockwells paid fair-ish value for the stake - it was publicly traded at the time and they didn't get a discount or anything like that. I'm not qualified to judge how the negotiations between the Cockwells and Brookfield went down, and to be honest I don't really care.

I mean, that's why I said "Brookfield adjacent". He's owned the stake for 5 years and capital allocation has been fine. I probably would have cut the dividend and started repurchasing shares instead but that's not a big issue. Wouldn't be my first choice for major owner but I think it's probably fine.

I mean, I'm mortgage/debt free now and earn quite a bit more than that, enough that my combined marginal tax rate is 48%. I certainly don't spend/need that money now, which is why I spend time focusing on investing it. But like I said earlier if you gave me $25MM I wouldn't stop running my business, so why not keep doing things that you enjoy even if you don't need the money?

Yes. Personally, I think the Canadian obsession with avoiding OAS clawback in retirement planning is a bit silly, especially on a site like this one. I'm planning on having income in my 70s well above the threshold... Edited to add: although dividends in a fully taxable account are very bad for OAS clawback purposes because of how they are taxed. In Canada dividends are "grossed up" and then credited. Basically the idea is you include the corporations pre-tax income on your return and get a credit for the tax they already paid. It works out to a lower effective tax rate than regular income, but it does inflate your headline income for things like OAS clawback.