Parsad

Hi Folks, I'm looking for silent auction prizes for the Fairfax Financial Shareholder's Dinner on April 10th at the Fairmont Royal York. Last year we had some wonderful donations for prizes. If you would like to donate a prize, and in return have your corporate logo or business contact/cards on the auction table, please contact me at cornerofberkshireandfairfax@gmail.com. Thanks very much! Sanjeev

I've received a request from someone wondering if anyone wanted to share a room at the Fairmont Royal York for the AGM? Please let me know, and I will forward the contact information. Cheers!

All our best to the Byrne family!

Very good letter! Remains very bearish and made hints that a correction may not be as far as some people think. Some good commentary on things they are doing regarding succession at various levels of the company. Two in particular stuck out...Wade Burton has been added to the Investment Committee and Thomas Cook India will be their vehicle to acquire other Indian businesses. Cheers!

If you want to make money like Eric, there is a business model available with less at risk capital, lower annual returns, just as much leverage, and you can sleep at night...manage other people's money! ;D Mohnish started Pabrai Funds with $100,000 of his own money. After ten years at about 22% annual compounding, he built a net worth of about $45M. He not only sleeps well at night, he takes a damn nap in the middle of the day at the office! Cheers!

The same as Redskin212...over 18% compounded annually! He sent me his results after he looked at Eric's, and it was like he was a chronic underachiever. He's in the top 0.001% of investors and he feels like he underachieved! Eric, I think every guy on here thinks their d**k is a hell of alot shorter than yours today! ;D Time to buy a corvette! Cheers!

It's why I use Ajay's team at UBS. They will work the trade for us at their trading desk, and then we are charged solely on a per share basis. Otherwise, you will have to look for blocks that are offered and try to buy them. Cheers!

That's true. But I think Eric is probably 1 in 100,000,000. The only guys that come close to those returns are startups that take off in a short period of time or daytraders who shot the lights out on a couple of stocks. It's not even likely that Buffett, in his best ten year span in his personal account, was doing what Eric did over the last ten years. And if you ask Eric, I'm sure there were plenty of restless nights when he was thinking, "Have I fu*ked my family over by putting all of our nest egg into one idea?" But he made the bet and his temperament allowed him to get through it. Amazing story, and I'm just proud he did it on my message board. It's a story I'll tell for ages! Alnesh, Andrew and I were talking about it again this morning! Cheers!

We told Eric to start a fund years ago. He doesn't want to. Once he hits a billion, he's going to put all of his money in T-bills and sell paintings on the side of the road for ten bucks each as a starving artist! ;D That's his dream! Cheers!

By the way, someone should be doing a case study on Eric. That's arguably, the greatest investment results over a 10-year period I've seen. Eric, you should come to our dinner in Toronto and speak! Cheers!

It is only possible because of this board, but anyways here's what Fidelity is telling me for the RothIRA -- they have, as of the end of January, been tracking my performance for exactly 10 years: Eric, you've only achieved 73% cumulative over ten years? You'll never be a centamilliionaire! ;D Cheers!

And, posting on cornerofberkshireandfairfax... I kinda like that thought What I'd like to see is Eric become a centimillionare over the next few years, and have him continue to post on here. Then every time someone like Harry Long comes on here and tells us how we are anchored to our old ideas, all we have to do is show a picture of Eric sitting in his Netjets plane! ;D Cheers!

So I guess if any of us board members only buys some relative tiny stake in a really tiny small cap company, he/she might be required to file at least some form. Yes, you would have to file if you own 5% or more of an issuer...regardless of dollar amount or size of company...it's 10% in Canada. Eric would not have to file a report if he did have $100M, $500M or even a billion. What happens is that when you start to get into those amounts, usually people create corporations, trusts, etc that hold the assets, and then they do have to file a 13-F as an institution. If Eric holds the assets in his own personal account and name, outside of any sort of entity, then he would not have to file anything. The brokerage institution probably reports these accounts to the SEC and IRS regardless, so they would know who has how much money in what...Forbes would not know that. So no worries Eric. Your secret will be safe with us, as you fly around on your Marquis Jet Card, surfing the internet at 20,000 feet. Cheers!

We could be in for some surprises tomorrow...earlier than expected! I can't imagine why this discussion would be happening, unless some banks were approved for substantially larger capital payouts through dividends or buybacks than generally assumed. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-07/banks-said-to-weigh-defying-fed-with-dividend-disclosures.html?cmpid=yhoo

Thanks alot Grenville! Faster than head office and right off the transcript...how great is this board. Cheers! Parsad, What do you see as the future returns on Fairfax from here? From your posts, is this a long-term buy and hold position for you? Thanks in advance. With the leverage they use, and their investment expertise, they can get 15% ROE going forward for at least another 10-15 years under the current team. Cheers!

Thanks alot Grenville! Faster than head office and right off the transcript...how great is this board. Cheers!

I was going to ask you--is it normally an early March deal? Seems like a week after Buffett's is normal? Hopefully someone reads this from head office and gives us an update. I hope it's this week...I'm really looking forward to it. Cheers!

Anyone know when Prem's letter and annual report are supposed to come out? Is it this week? Cheers!

We have a family friend that opened a franchise a few years ago and she's made apparently decently good cash flow, but she says it's not worth it. Finding help is too difficult and a good manager is basically impossible to find. She also had troubles with the company when the store computer went down. She couldn't just buy a new equivalent one for $300, but she had to buy the one from the company for $1200 and it was a crappy old machine. It's constant troubles for her. She's just working to pay off the debt and then be done with it. So like Parsad said, until you can find and keep a great manager you trust, it's going to be a lot of work. Morgan touched on something else I should have mentioned. Make sure the franchise agreement stipulations aren't onerous. The best franchises are the ones that emulate the same system across the chain, but allow flexibility with each owner and their regional customer base. There are many franchise agreements that are just crazy, and are completely to burnish the coffers of the parent company. Usually this means the franchisee is a grunt and long-term passive income is less likely. I would recommend talking to franchisees in chains you are interested in. Set up a coffee or take the owner out for lunch, and just ask him what his experience is like with the franchise...what he likes, dislikes, etc. Cheers!

You will have to be totally hands-on on the franchise for a while, until you find a good manager and train them right. I have a number of friends who run franchises, and it is never-ending. Once you find a good manager, then you start to see the passive income come in, but initially it's very time-consuming to get it up and going. Good help is hard to find, but once you do, they have to be incentivized to work hard for you. One my friends has done very well with Subway franchises on Vancouver Island. He's even got it now where he can monitor his employees from his laptop and cameras in the store. He's got a good manager in place, his retired parents help out a bit on the accounting and administrative side, and he's got some good passive income coming in between two stores and now trying to get a third one open. But there are definitely times when he has to be there and for long stretches. Cheers!

Hi Yours Truly, It was actually in the "Books" section, but because it wasn't about one specific book, I moved it here. Cheers!

Hi Folks, Please do not put copyrighted books and material downloads on here for sharing. We don't want to infringe on anyone's intellectual property. If you want a downloaded book...buy it, rather than downloading from others. And I understand people wanting to share, but there is a reason why property rights are protected. Thanks!

1) Tough. But you may be able to find him at different places where they will sit and sign some autographs. Keep your ears open while you are there, and probably keep a copy of it in your laptop bag or in your car. 2) Get to the Centurylink Center early. But you will still get a seat if you are there by 7am. Even if you aren't in the main forum, there are seating areas outside in various places that have video feed. 3) Yes, in Toronto two weeks earlier! ;D I only go every three years, so I haven't organized anything. There are so many Berkshire events, that there really isn't much time or space for a CofB&F meet. But you will run into boardmembers and readers, and you can hang with them, go for a bite, etc. You will make alot of friends while you are there. 4) Yes. Yellow BRK'ers are the guys wearing the big, yellow ten gallon cowboy hats. Alex, who has posted above, is organizing it. You'll have some fun, meet people to probably hang out with over the weekend, and certainly will run into some CofB&F boardmembers there. It was started, I guess, about 14-15 years ago. Buffett used to come to the party before and hang around for a while. Not any more, as Berkshire weekend is just so huge and busy now. Cheers!

Prices have risen dramatically and are above 30 times the average annual income. They have no real alternative to invest their new found money, so it goes into real estate. But it only goes there as long as prices are flat or rising. As soon as prices start to drop, you will see money stop flowing...it's a self-fullfilling cycle...always ends in a bust whether it is in 3 years or 10 years. The developers are already extremely overleveraged and have shut down so many developments. I think China is the greatest real estate bubble in history! Cheers!

Hey Sanjeev, Is the reservation for Saturday or Sunday night ? Sunday. Buffett shows up at Piccolos on Sunday around 7:30-8:30pm. He's usually at Gorat's on Sunday around 6-6:30pm, but Gorat's is broken up into three rooms, so you don't know where you will be seated. Piccolos is really one big massive room for the most part, so it's likely you will get to see him. Cheers!