Parsad

What Rob Ford needs right now is the help of another very-well known Canadian expat...Lorne Michaels! ;D Maybe a guest hosting job on SNL, or reprising Chris Farley's counsellor role..."In a van, down by the river!"...could rehabilitate his image right now. It worked for Miley Cyrus. Cheers!

LOL! What was Toronto thinking when they voted for this guy? The rest of the country despises Toronto because of their whole "Leaf Nation", but really, we feel sorry for you guys now. This is just too embarrassing, even as much as we want you to look stupid...this is too much! Cheers!

I agree 100%! And thank you very much, Parsad! It is a great idea backed by flawless execution: it is destined to become more and more influential worldwide. Its future, as far as I can see, is very very bright! :) Gio Glad everything worked out Gio! Actually, at our very first Fairfax Financial Shareholder's Dinner, board member Calonego brought someone who he was on a first date with to our dinner. Not actually at our dinner...he got a booth next to our dinner, so that he could date her and still listen to the investing conversation! Fast forward 9 years, and not only did he end up marrying that girl (obviously she was a keeper, if she put up with that night), but they have a baby too. So, it wasn't this community's first stab at romance regarding a value investing nerd! ;D Cheers!

Good luck Gio! Let us know how it goes. Cheers!

I don't hate anyone Junto...not even Steve Cohen. But thanks for explaining to me how I feel. You don't even know me! Have we even ever met? Have you even had a conversation with me as long as I've spoken to Sardar, Prem, Mohnish or even many other board members on here? Yet, you are perfectly comfortable making a statement like that. People are awfully brave and honest under anonymity! Cheers! Far from anonymous....links abound since the beginning. I stand by my comments and my assessment of your constant either support or negative comments towards the two. Perhaps, severe dislike is a better characterization. I don't need to meet you to follow the trends/tendencies. No negative feelings on my end just trying to point out my assessment of the situation that I think gets overlooked on the site. Words on a page are words on a page. Cheers! Well, that's exactly what they are...words! Do you think that reading about dinosaurs tells you everything about dinosaurs? Or if you read the financials on a company, that tells you everything about the company? Of course not! It may give you some insights, but no context or any other details. How would you feel if I came to certain conclusions about you solely through your blog? I would assume you are more complicated than that, and that those words aren't the summation of your life or thoughts. You don't know the extent of my interactions with Prem or Sardar, or even about events or experiences left unshared. Wisdom indeed!

LOL! Nice job. I think all the BBRY shareholders can use a good laugh right now. Really, what is going on in Toronto right now anyway...the Mayor is on crack, the Leafs are winning...maybe this is the Rapture and the Apocalypse is coming. Cheers!

I don't hate anyone Junto...not even Steve Cohen. But thanks for explaining to me how I feel. You don't even know me! Have we even ever met? Have you even had a conversation with me as long as I've spoken to Sardar, Prem, Mohnish or even many other board members on here? Yet, you are perfectly comfortable making a statement like that. People are awfully brave and honest under anonymity! Cheers!

60% is done! Get your tickets as soon as possible. No way I can get extra seats this year in the Upper Canada room...140 is capacity for the way the room is laid out for dinner. Cheers!

I certainly think a good outcome suggests it's more likely that the decision was correct, than a bad outcome does. Investing isn't roulette - the odds are unknown. Most of the time I can only make extremely rough guesses about future "probabilities". I feel it would be presumptuous to second guess the past too. So the fact that Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme didn't blow up years earlier suggests that the decision was correct until it eventually met its demise? I think munger would disagree with you. He said multiple times at annual meetings he put more than 100 percent of his net worth in a single stock on more than one occasion. We know Buffett did it a few times with the partnership at 40 percent and he bought a huge amount of geico in 76 when it was probably 50-50 it would avoid bk. Buffett can't concentrate anymore because brk is so damn big. Munger nearly went broke in 1973-74. In the end, things worked out ok, but not because he had bet everything on one stock. You guys listen to him and bite hard on one sound bite, rather than examining exactly what he is talking about. Munger says bet big when you have the odds in your favor...not always...but those few rare times when you know you have a huge advantage, bet big! He's not talking about someone like Sardar betting the farm every hand...he's talking about betting the farm on rare occasions. I've done that, Ericopoly did that...but he was not talking about pulling all of the cash out of Steak'n Shake, leveraging it to capacity, and then betting it on a restaurant stock that was barely trading below fair value! You guys need a refresher...read below: BETTING ON HORSES AND PICKING STOCKS HAVE MORE THAN A LITTLE IN COMMON. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Odds on horses and stocks are set by the market. Munger: The model I like - to sort of simplify the notion of what goes on in a market for common stocks - is the pari-mutuel system at the race track. If you stop to think about it, a pari-mutuel system is a market. Everybody goes there and bets and the odds change based on what's bet. That's what happens in the stock market. Any damn fool can see that a horse carrying a light weight with a wonderful win rate and a good post position etc., etc. is way more likely to win than a horse with a terrible record and extra weight and so on and so on. But if you look at the damn odds. the bad horse pays 100 to 1, whereas the good horse pays 3 to 2. Then it's not clear which is statistically the best bet using the mathematics of Fermat and Pascal. The prices have changed in such a way that it's very hard to beat the system. And then the track is taking 17% off the top. So not only do you have to outwit all the other betters, but you've got to outwit them by such a big margin that on average, you can afford to take 17% of your gross bets off the top and give it to the house before the rest of your money can be put to work. Believe it or not, some people make money betting horses. Munger: Given those mathematics, is it possible to beat the horses only using one's intelligence? Intelligence should give some edge, because lots of people who don't know anything go out and bet lucky numbers and so forth. Therefore, somebody who really thinks about nothing but horse performance and is shrewd and mathematical could have a very considerable edge, in the absence of the frictional cost caused by the house take. Unfortunately, what a shrewd horseplayer's edge does in most cases is to reduce his average loss over a season of betting from the 17% that he would lose if he got the average result to maybe 10%. However, there are actually a few people who can beat the game after paying the full 17%. I used to play poker when I was young with a guy who made a substantial living doing nothing but bet harness races.... Now. harness racing is a relatively inefficient market. You don't have the depth of intelligence betting on harness races that you do on regular races. What my poker pal would do was to think about harness races as his main profession. And he would bet only occasionally when he saw some mispriced bet available. And by doing that, after paying the full handle to the house - which I presume was around 17% - he made a substantial living. You have to say that's rare. However, the market was not perfectly efficient. And if it weren't for that big 17% handle, lots of people would regularly be beating lots of other people at the horse races. It's efficient, yes. But it's not perfectly efficient. And with enough shrewdness and fanaticism, some people will get better results than others. It ain't easy, but it's possible, to outperform in stocks, too. Munger: The stock market is the same way - except that the house handle is so much lower. If you take transaction costs - the spread between the bid and the ask plus the commissions - and if you don't trade too actively, you're talking about fairly low transaction costs. So that with enough fanaticism and enough discipline, some of the shrewd people are going to get way better results than average in the nature of things. It is not a bit easy. And, of course, 50% will end up in the bottom half and 70% will end up in the bottom 70%. But some people will have an advantage. And in a fairly low transaction cost operation, they will get better than average results in stock picking. What works betting horses also works for stock picking. Munger: How do you get to be one of those who is a winner - in a relative sense - instead of a loser? Here again, look at the pari-mutuel system. I had dinner last night by absolute accident with the president of Santa Anita. He says that there are two or three betters who have a credit arrangement with them, now that they have off-track betting, who are actually beating the house. They're sending money out net after the full handle - a lot of it to Las Vegas, by the way - to people who are actually winning slightly, net, after paying the full handle. They're that shrewd about something with as much unpredictability as horse racing. And the one thing that all those winning betters in the whole history of people who've beaten the pari-mutuel system have is quite simple. They bet very seldom. Winners bet big when they have the odds - otherwise, never. Munger: It's not given to human beings to have such talent that they can just know everything about everything all the time. But it is given to human beings who work hard at it - who look and sift the world for a mispriced bet - that they can occasionally find one. And the wise ones bet heavily when the world offers them that opportunity. They bet big when they have the odds. And the rest of the time, they don't. It's just that simple.

Looking for a job? ValueInv, why are you being such a dick? Can you please grow up. Returning the favor: That's my point! That comment is from April, and you still have a hard on for Txlaw...to try and make him look stupid. What does this accomplish? No one is a child here. How can grown men lob grenades at each other as if they are still in sophomore year of high school. God Lord! Cheers! Couching BS in polite professional language does not make one a grown man anymore than putting lipstick on a pig makes it a supermodel. Wellmont is doing what I used to do- engaging Txlaw intellectually. It's actually funny to watch someone else do it. It is also amazing that there is only one person who takes him to task. I'm fine if you engage him intellectually. It's the other stuff that the board can do without...such as the sophomoric shot you made today!

Looking for a job? ValueInv, why are you being such a dick? Can you please grow up. Returning the favor: That's my point! That comment is from April, and you still have a hard on for Txlaw...to try and make him look stupid. What does this accomplish? No one is a child here. How can grown men lob grenades at each other as if they are still in sophomore year of high school. God Lord! Cheers!

Parsad, don't you give him any credit for being right about BH and CBRL? They could have gone badly but they didn't. The outcome doesn't mean the decision was correct. Just like Prem's outcome for the TIG & C&F acquisition doesn't mean that what he did was correct either. There was every possibility that they were too late once they got to Steak'n Shake...it was closer, very close to going under. The tax reassessment gave them a lifeline and some time. Sardar had to work incredibly quickly at that time to save the company...I gave him credit then, and I will still give him credit now for doing that. Why do you think the compensation structure changed? Because he was the one who would have lost everything and had nothing left to show. He wasn't the only one responsible for the turnaround...there were two other people that played a big part. But going back to the original decision to put everything into SNS, or now into CBRL...these are not good decisions from a risk management point of view. Hey I'm friends with Allan Mecham, and I would not have done that either with Berkshire, nor the correlated risks in Mohnish's portfolio before the credit crisis. Mohnish learned from that...Prem learned from C&F & TIG. Let's see if Biglari does? Cheers!

Looking for a job? ValueInv, why are you being such a dick? Can you please grow up.

+1! Cheers!

+1! Excellent post! Cheers!

Article on the Pritzker family of Chicago, and former heirs to the Marmon fortune. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-05/pritzker-billionaire-brothers-turn-from-family-feuding-to-deals.html

A market-short fund, seeded by Julian Robertson, is shutting down. More wasted capital that I, among other value managers, could have been managing instead and making actual profits, instead of this stupid thing Wall Street mistakenly terms "alpha"! ;D Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/101171604

+1! Cheers!

He switched from Pepsi to Coca-Cola! ;D Cheers!

Crazy! I remember a friend of mine telling me he thought it was undervalued, when he ran his proxy against them. I had bought some around $16, but sold at $28. I think it's more than fully valued right now. Don't know if he owns any right now! Cheers!

40 years of hindsight should prove who he is by now. It may be that investors are weighing 40 years against 1 event that accounts for 2.2% of Fairfax's assets. Where is the logic in that? This whole debate is ridiculous. The man is no idiot, and his results for the last 25 plus years has been on par or better than Berkshire. He never came up with that moniker, but if anyone is going to use it, it probably fits him better than most. Hindsight will prove that this period was a significant over-reaction to an investment that may or may not turn out well. Cheers!

However, I made the same trade as tallpop; I bet on Prem's word that the deal would get done, despite my own belief that BBRY was worth far less than what he was willing to pay, and this was a bad deal for FFH. Someone serious about wanting to maintain an ironclad reputation for deals (such as WEB) would not have gone so public with such a high-profile deal (most high profile deal in firms history) and then backed out. Bottom line: I will not make a bet solely on Prems word again. Translate that into having less "respect" for his good name, if you want. Does this reflect on Prem, the investor, or both? Perhaps they were stupid and premature to make the comments they made until closing the deal. Perhaps, investors were stupid for making this bet? I know Prem very well, and I did not make this bet, because THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES until a deal is done. You made a wager and it turned out bad...whose fault is this? Even if it was WEB, why would you make this bet solely on Buffett's word? Outside of the BBRY debacle, these are actually investor mistakes...piggy-backing instead of actually doing your own analysis and standing by it. There are lessons here, but for the investor. Cheers!

Hi John, We're quite fortunate. 95% of our partners have been with us through thick and thin. But we deal with individual familys, so they have a very different idea of a financial relationship than say fund of funds, institutions, etc. They are long-term! So, we are quite happy with the group that we have, and we look for more exactly like them. Cheers!

Parsad, you know I have the utmost respect for your money-management background, which is something you share with the great majority of the people on the board. But you also know that my background is different: I have started as a businessman and only afterwards I have looked at the stock market as a way to complement my strategy for building wealth in the long run. So, mine is the perspective of the businessman. And, according to Mr. Buffett, both perspectives, the investor’s and the businessman’s, are important, right? Now, given my background, I know personally many more businessmen than investors, money-mangers, or traders (if, of course, we exclude all the great people I have had the chance to meet on the board!). And all those businessmen that I know are alike: each one of them has built one business and runs one business: one and only one! And let me tell you that in their eyes I am the exception, the unconventional one: what are these stock market investments? They seem to ask. Why don’t you concentrate on your true business instead? And they seem to disapprove what I do. Now, it is true you will never read of them on Forbes or Fortune, because their businesses lack scale and will never grow very large, but, believe me, they otherwise have been and still are very successful! They have put everything they own in one single business and have been successful for many many years. In my world they are not the exception, they are the rule! And most of them have thrived! :) Cheers! giofranchi Gio, I am not your conventional investment manager. I'm probably the most improbable and most unconventional manager around...more like Francis Chou than Bruce Berkowitz! I have no degree, CFA, MBA or CFP. My view of the investment management business is as a businessperson, not as an investment manager. I know/knew both men...Biglari and Watsa...probably better than almost anyone on here. Watsa is no Biglari, and I can only be grateful for that. Cheers!

Most annual reports he will talk about something. Usually the letters are there to praise the managers...never himself. If you have not read the letters, then you should. From the 2003 Annual Letter: Of course, our big mistake at TIG was not recognizing that its MGA model would not work, particularly with one broker controlling 40-50% of the business. We should have shut or sold the MGA business years back and built on the much smaller individual risk underwriting operations. The losses at TIG resulted in a weakening of our financial position. You can rest assured on one thing, unless there are exceptional circumstances, we will not ‘‘give our pen’’ away. So overall, TIG Re definitely delivered the benefit that we saw in it when we made the TIG acquisition, but we cannot count TIG alongside our many very successful acquisitions, which include our Canadian companies, OdysseyRe and Crum & Forster. There are numerous other examples, but I just pulled that one because it was easiest to find. Cheers!