Parsad

I'm not a lawyer, but I do manage a fund, and I am fairly certain your suggestion is illegal. If the partnership is formed by non-accredited investors with the sole purpose of investing in a hedge fund it is a violation. Even if it passes that test, it could also be subject to a "look through" in terms of investor count. Meaning if the partnership had ten people the fund would be using up ten slots. Someone please correct me if I am wrong here. Tim is correct. The partners within the partnership would have to be accredited themselves to invest in an accredited fund...regardless of how much capital they have in the partnership. That being said, there is no reason why a bunch of family members or friends could not start a partnership by pooling their resources, and then investing it themselves...if you are a decent investor, your group would beat the markets, reduce frictional costs, and no one would have to come up with huge sums of money to invest. Your partnership could even invest in real estate and other opportunistic investments. But you would not be able to invest in an accredited fund, hold yourself out as an exempt fund, or anything like that. You would be just be invested in a closely held family and friends partnership. Cheers!

Canada seems to be the outlier of most developed nations...most likely going to tighten monetary policy going forward. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-23/carney-strengthens-bias-to-raise-rates-as-household-debt-grows.html

If you have not bought, get'em while we've got them! 50 sold so far...and I expect them to start going much faster in November and December...if we have any left. :o Cheers!

Deflation is rearing it's ugly head in China. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-22/china-s-factories-losing-pricing-power-in-earnings-threat.html

With all of the positive things happening economically in India, the realities of the work ahead are made only too clear by this fantastic article in Bloomberg by Mehul Srivastava. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-22/hunger-stalks-my-father-s-india-long-after-starvation-banished.html

Nope, still restricted. Cheers!

This is the October Letter written by Ben Raybould, who runs Arlington's Ranger Fund. Ben wrote a pretty interesting letter discussing the performance of his partner, Allan Mecham, who started Arlington. I don't post alot of letters, other than a few close friends that I admire, but Allan deserves recognition in my opinion. He's one of the best managers I know out there, and he is an incredibly humble guy. Probably not too keen on this even being printed here, but I do have permission. He'll probably show up to our dinner again this year, so you guys may want to ask him then how his leveraged bet on Berkshire is doing...I'm guessing pretty good! Cheers! Arlington_Value_Oct_2012_Investor_letter.pdf

If you are interested, here are some photographs of the Martian soil and landscape. Cheers! http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/18/mars-rover-spots-shiny-objects/?hpt=hp_t3

Personally, when I post these things, it has hardly anything to do with say the "Indian" side, but instead the question of "Why is it that way?". Whether it is Coca-cola's moat, manufacturing in China, prevalence of Jews in media, obesity in North America, etc". There is some sort of trigger (possibly cultural, industry-related), or an event (coup, war, famine, excess wealth, consolidation) that leads to this type of asymmetry. For example, going back to the motel/hotel business...it's not all Indians were dominant in that area, but a very specific group...gujurati's. And they were persecuted in various adopted countries, eventually fleeing to the U.K. and North America. Not that dissimiliar to the Jewish experience immigrating to the United States. So from that article, the question that begs is "Why Silicon Valley? Why startups, and say not engineering positions for other companies or the government?" Cheers!

Hi Liberty, Yup, I've got it. You're good to go for the dinner. See you there! Cheers!

Dhandho moves from motel/hotel dominance to startups. Thanks to Shai for the article! Cheers! http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/15/how-indians-defied-gravity-and-achieved-success-in-silicon-valley/

Two people associated with Berkshire actually wrote letters asking for some leniency for Gupta! Whaaattt? ??? Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-18/rajat-gupta-s-friends-in-high-places.html?cmpid=yhoo.view

Thanks. Going mostly to Spain. Guess that's the bargain-hunter in me ;) Then taking a trans-Atlantic ship and landing back in Florida. Nice! Enjoy yourself and don't tell any Spaniards to "get a job!" ;D Cheers!

Was it this one? http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/shipping-stocks/msg22507/#msg22507 If not, just click "Home" and then go to the "search" box on the top right hand side. Type in some words you are certain would have been in that thread. It should find a few and one of them will probably be the correct thread. Cheers!

Thanks for letting us know Liberty! Have a nice vacation. Where are you going anyway? Cheers!

Yup! At least in main city centers where the Bay and Nordstroms would dominate. In suburban and rural areas, they are still going to get hit by Walmart and now Target. Cheers!

For my Canadian compatriots familiar with the company. They are doing a fantastic renovation of the downtown store before Nordstrom's comes in across the street. About time they gave this old brand some new life! Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-17/hudson-s-bay-files-documents-for-ipo.html?cmpid=yhoo

Yeah, it's pretty impressive. The markets barely reacted, but they've made enormous progress over the last two years. This was a bank on the verge of collapse four years ago, and still choking on Countrywide two years ago. - Now, excluding legacy issue costs (most of which they've reserved for), they are one of the best-capitalized banks in the U.S., as well as the rest of the world. - They've paid down a ton of long-term debt and reduced interest costs. - They've settled many of the larger legacy issues. - Their main segments of growth are finally stabilized and starting to turn around. - They will pass their stress test with flying colors, and finally return more capital to shareholders through dividends and buybacks. - They've gotten lean and mean, cutting as much fat as they can and focusing their core businesses. - They've maintained the value of their deposit base, as well as many core relationships in other segments. - The culture of the company has completely shifted...we don't want to be big, we want to be a great bank and help our customers! One of the great turnarounds in the last two decades. Clear some more legacy issues in 2013 and start to produce clean quarters from 2014 on. Cheers!

Thanks for the details, Sanjeev. Is the Corner Capital AGM only for investors in Corner Capital, or is it open to everybody? No, it is open to everyone. We had close to 40 people last year, and the rooms hold about 50. Cheers!

A bit of an under count :-) There's also the pre-dinner event, the Corner Capital annual meeting afterwards, and perhaps a Ben Graham Center conference ($$$) before hand. Yes, I forgot about George's conference. It was sold out last year, and it is from about 9am to 5pm the day before the AGM...so it works great for Norm's gathering and our dinner. I'll find out from George if he is doing it next year, but I can't see why he wouldn't. Cheers!

elltel,... actually it's very easy,... you just show up, on Thursday morning, April 11, 2013 at 9:30 a.m., Toronto time at Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. There is NO need for a ticket. But it's better to come 1 hour earlier. In the lobby of the Roy Thomson Hall are for the Fairfax AGM some registration desks where you show them some ID card or passport,... nothing more. Or you might want to show them your proxy letter,... but that isn't necessary. You get at the desk some badge for your shirt with the name "Fairfax Financial AGM for shareholders" and that's it. How long does the official AGM the next day usually last and what is it like? Does all the fun stuff happen at the dinner the day before and the AGM is more of the 'dry procedural business' stuff, or is the official AGM also full of goodness with presentations, Q&As, and guests making speeches and such? The dinner is less formal and we do have a whole bunch of great stuff...first you get to mingle with other investors and boardmembers...we have a great dinner...a terrific silent auction and raffle...and finally Prem comes with about 10-12 people who answer questions for the next hour and a bit. Then usually Francis sticks around answering questions until I help him escape the throng of shareholders around him! ;D The AGM is more formal. Prem runs through the AGM procedures in five-seven minutes like at Berkshire. He then introduces the team of managers and executives. Finally he gives shareholders a presentation for about 30-40 minutes. After that he answers questions for an hour and a half. Then everyone goes into the lobby area of Roy Thomson Hall for cocktails and hor d'oeurves, and you can mingle with all of the executives and managers asking questions...including Prem. They usually have a number of booths from various associated companies/charities, and there are a bunch of freebies. Last year they gave away to each shareholder a $25 gift card for their restaurants and $50 gift cards for the Sport Life stores! We also hold our AGM immediately after Fairfax's at Roy Thomson Hall. Just follow the hallway to the stairs and go down to the Pickering/Green rooms. We have food and beverages as well. We were pretty packed last year. Also NormR does his pre-dinner party nearby before our dinner. Last year Francis, Andy Bernard and Sam Chan popped by for a little while. Cheers! Cheers!

Wow, 25 tickets sold in the first 24 hours. That's a new record! Cheers!

Hi guys, didn't notice anything this morning, but in the last week there has been a couple of short outages of about 2 minutes and ten minutes. Alpha23, are you doing any upgrades to your network (he's our server host provider)? Cheers!

Hi Liberty! Strathcona is a very good choice for budget-conscious attendees who just need a nice, clean place to sleep, and is really close to both the Fairmont and Roy Thomson Hall where the AGM is. The Strathcona is a boutique style hotel and I recommend it to people who don't want to stay at the Fairmont, but want something very close to all venues. Cheers!

Sorry Jack...someone else was first already...Brian. Cheers!