ukvalueinvestment

Gio, I'm thinking of buying Terra catalyst Fund (see VIC). Main asset is Italian Commercial Real Estate. What do you think? Right time in the cycle to buy?

What! You mean Americans pay capital gains when they sell their house? At what rate?

Deere - I've always thought this a good candidate for a much bigger holding, or even outright ownership at current prices. Ticks a lot of Buffett boxes including short term possible headwinds. Anyone got a view on this?

You might want to try Children's Investment Fund. They invest in a lot of "quality". eg currently Moody's. I think they leverage it sometimes, as Arlington appears to.

Interesting that she says he would have spent over 500 hours on the Korean basket. I always assumed they were picked blind.

Haha. When asked what technology he loved, did he really include "the book"!? :D

I don't really understand what this means: "I bought a $2.50 gold Indian (1911) and a $5 gold Indian (1914) for $1 and $3 over the melt value of the gold!" But what I do know is that gold has no cash flows that can be valued, and that time used buying old bits of gold is time that I could be using to find wonderful undervalued compounding businesses (of the present or future).

I guess it comes down to a question around how you value pets. Some see them as almost equal to humans. Some see them as totally inferior and closer to being "objects". Also, how should being able to "afford" kids affect how many you have? Some would say that how much money you have shouldn't affect how many kids you have.

I got distracted by the Eurobank presentation. This company ticks a lot of boxes.

Actually, I think you may be wrong about pet insurance. Lloyds Bank in the UK recently pulled the product because it was making losses. Basically it's because peoples expectations have changed. In the past, most pet illnesses would end prompt them being put down. These days, people expect their pets to get treated almost like humans. So if a pet gets a serious illness, they expect it to get a great deal of care for as long as necessary. However, people are only prepared to pay a fraction of human health insurance. I used to work with a particularly annoying woman who used to take regular days off because her dog was ill and she had to take it to the vet! I'm not talking about once or twice... many times.

How ironic. It's grammatically incorrect to put a comma before "and".

He means "don't lose money on a portfolio basis over 2-3 years"

Hmm let me think of a few quick ones. They may have been asked and answered but I don't remember them. 1. Why change the 5 year rolling period comparison changed to cycle for 2013? 2. Why was the buyback raise from 1.1x to 1.2x book not informed to all shareholders before the 1.2 Billion buyback from the "long-time shareholder"? Why were no shares bought on the open market? Will the increase in buyback to 1.3x book happen when another "long-time shareholder" needs to sell? 3. Why was BRK investing in bonds at the bottom of a generational low instead of loading up on stocks? 4. What was the thinking behind not selling KO in 1998 ? (I seriously cant believe that he didn't see it as overvalued then) 5. Why are we using the Berkshire Hathaway name for Home services? One subsidiary's success/failure/mistake/etc could affect the Brand Value of the entire company. Berkshire is far more shareholder friendly than pretty much any other corporation. Warren and Charlie sit there for hours on end and answer any question they are given. WEB takes meticulous care over his annual letter and gives you a vast amount of information. And you are complaining that they aren't shareholder friendly enough?? What other company does what Berkshire do? 3) When do you mean? 4) I always thought he never sold for tax reasons? And also, I guess, because Berkshire is so big it is extremely hard to trade in and out of the market. 5) Interesting question. I sort of thought the same thing myself.

In the application notes, VIC recommend that you write up a US stock, be careful about Telecom Argentina.

If I was Buffett's sidekick I wouldn't feel the need to embellish things to impress people. He said recently on his CNBC appearance that he spent 30 years following the dialysis industry. 500 hours sounds fairly reasonable to me.

Mephistopheles - why would you continue to do research after you've invested? That implies you didn't do as much as you could have done before you invested.

Does that include thinking time? I probably thought about Emeco Holdings for 5 hours yesterday during the course of my day.

What's his cost of capital? A first class air ticket is never cheap...

Real no brainer. He knows that people will be watching what he does, so he's trying to pursue a strategy that anyone can follow.

For me, it's worse if a company is doing it than an individual. I say blow that whistle.

No amount of money would make me work as a police officer and certain other jobs. My physical safety and desire not to see bad things means I just wouldn't do it. So can I get upset about large pensions for police officers? No. In general they do a lot of good, and there are far worse inequities going on in the world than this. Everyone knows that collapsing local government finances are coming. Didn't Buffett say as much in his latest letter? But I smile when Americans say things like: "Hopefully my children/grandchildren will be smart enough to move another country before that happens." I also continually read that America is turning communist because of Obamacare and because some people think banning guns is a good idea. The fact is that pensions and state benefits are a problem everywhere. You think things are better here in the UK? You think things are better in France, in Spain, in Italy? Why do you think they are in the trouble they are in? And in places that don't have pension problems, that's probably because they don't look after their retired. That's not necessarily a good thing or a sign of a developed economy. What makes America relatively great (in my view) is the flexibility. Debts will be restructured and pensions reduced in ways that just wouldn't happen in other countries.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. He did the Dale Carnegie course because he was scared of public speaking. He said he was a terrible salesman because he looked and sounded like a 12 year old (something like that). Re the partnerships, a lot of his original investors were friends and family (not much networking required), and later investors came on board because of performance. Look, I'm not saying the guy was an anti social recluse, but you can't really be an uber networker living in Omaha, can you? I think I read that his final partnership was worth $600mln in today's money. That sounds pretty small to mid cap to me - I know he invested in AMEX. My idea of a networker is someone who is at the bar at a conference, handing out business cards.... Back to Scott Hall - I found his twitter, the guy's clearly good. But I found evidence of one expense... a Capital IQ!! They're quite costly, right?

What's his twitter handle? I like to follow independent minded value investors...

Perhaps could have done it without using phrases like "mental illness".

There is certainly a class of Value Investor who desires money for the "achievement", rather than material possessions. Chris Hohn, of Children's Investment Fund is another one. He has donated billions of his fund's profits to charity, to keep him motivated. He drives a Prius, wears a digital watch, and rents his house. I think I'm right in saying David Einhorn has an average car and lifestyle. Networking is only really necessary if you're not an investing genius. Someone like Buffett got by fine at first, in small cap land, because there was/is so much opportunity out there if you're good. Now he has a network of people who bring him stuff. Buffett once phoned up Pabrai (after Pabrai had bought that lunch with him at auction) and asked him for his best idea. Pabrai gave him Potash Corp. Months later, Buffett told him he looked into it, but decided against it. I can't remember why - something to do with not liking its monopolistic nature (I know that doesn't make sense).