Parsad

They are net neutral, so we should expect them to move sideways until opportunites present themselves or the insurance market really hardens. Cheers!

Or detecting asset bubbles! He was the Angelo Mozillo of Fed Chairmen. Cheers!

Yes, there were several people at our dinner from outside of North America. There were many people from outside of North America at the Fairfax AGM. Cheers!

Unless Abitibi gets a takeover bid! ;D Cheers!

Well, it was again two extraordinary days in Toronto! Outside of Berkshire's big weekend, I don't think there is any other big multi-day value investing experience like we've now got going every April in Toronto. Our Fairfax Financial Shareholder's Dinner was absolutely terrific again! We had about 144 people attend this year. Dr. Kevin Glasgow, CEO of the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of Canada spoke early in our dinner. After dinner, Dr. George Athanassakos, the Ben Graham Chair at Ivey spoke. Then Prem wowed us again by bringing a whole host of guests. This year: - Prem Watsa, Chairman & CEO of Fairfax Financial - Francis Chou, Managing Partner at Chou Funds - Sam Mitchell, Managing Director at Hamblin-Watsa - Paul Rivett, VP of Fairfax and Managing Director at Hamblin-Watsa - Peter Furlan, Analyst at Hamblin-Watsa - Ramaswamy Athappan, CEO of First Capital - Richie Boucher, CEO of the Bank of Ireland - Bill McMorrow, CEO of Kennedy-Wilson - Tom Ward, CEO of Sandridge Energy - Bill Gregson, Chairman of The Brick - Marc Bertrand, CEO of MEGABrands - Moses Znaimer, Founder of Zoomermedia Also in the audience were Mohnish Pabrai, Tim McElvaine, Benjamin Gallander and Robert Robotti. Both Hamblin-Watsa managing director, Chandran Ratnaswami, and former Fairfax analyst, Wayne Cadawallder, came during the Q&A. Chandran, as I told you at the AGM, you are more than welcome to come and sit with the panel...we have a seat for you! ;D Prem stayed for about half an hour, and then I had Francis moderate the panel. The Fairfax guests stayed for over an hour and answered plenty of questions from attendees. People have to remember that these CEO's are all incredibly successful in their own right, and to have them come, represent Fairfax and speak at our dinner, says everything you need to know about Prem as a leader! Extraordinary! Several of the guests stayed longer answering questions, and Peter Furlan and Francis Chou stayed much later. Francis was still surrounded by a scrum of about 20 at 11:45pm, after all the tables and room had been emptied. I thought it was about 10:30pm, and when I found out it was near midnight, I had to intervene and get Francis out of there. Again, this should tell you exactly what type of person Francis is, and our guests have always been extremely fortunate to have Francis at every dinner, spending inordinate amounts of time educating all of us! Thank you so much Francis! We raised about $11,040 from the dinner this year. Unfortunately, we broke even on ticket sales, as the audio video equipment was very expensive to rent for the evening. I've got a baseline now for the event, so we'll price it accordingly next year. You have all of these conferences that cost a fortune to attend, with virtually all of the profits going to the organizer! I think the price to value for our dinner is easily ten times better than any of those events, and all of the profits go to a non-profit organization like the "Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of Canada". You'll be paying $150 next year for dinner and the presentation, and $75 for just the presentation. That is cheap for what you get...really cheap! I'd like to thank all of you for your support, and also our volunteers who helped us out! It's what makes our dinner so damn good. Our large donors and silent auction winners really helped us out this year, as the cost of holding the dinner at the Fairmont is far more expensive than holding it at Joe Badali's. But with the size of the dinner now, this is the reality and only option. We will keep it pretty informal, with two short speakers sandwiching the dinner, and then our guests arriving for the Q&A. I want you all to be able to converse about investing for most of the night. The next day, the Fairfax AGM was also fantastic again! There were over 950 people in attendance this year. A number of booths dotted Roy Thomson Hall's pavillion, including our newly acquired non-insurance businesses...William Ashley, Prime Restaurants and The Sporting Life. All had shareholder discounts or gift cards for shareholders. The atmosphere was very much like Berkshire's and even Ajit Jain was present! Prem's presentation was more expansive this year, as he made a very big point of discussing Fairfax's insurance businesses. He had some terrific slides on investments as well, so those who could not attend should view the slides on Fairfax's website once they are posted. Unfortunately, I could not hear the Q&A, so you'll have to rely on NormR's notes once he posts them. The Templeton Foundation donated 350 copies of "The Templeton Plan" for shareholders, and Fairfax was incredibly generous to announce that while the books were free, any donations to the "Crohn's & Colitis Foundation" would be much appreciated. I was manning the both with Alnesh and Trish Long, director at the CCFC. We raised about $1,680 from the book donations. Thanks so much to Prem, Fairfax, Lauren Templeton and The Templeton Foundation! A few other comments about the other events during those two days: From everything I heard, Dr. Athanassakos's Value Investing Conference was a rousing success! It was completely sold out, and attendants really enjoyed it. The Fairfax Financial Shareholder's Pre-Dinner event organized by NormR was also a great success! About 20 people attended and they had a ton of conversation on investing and investment ideas. Francis Chou, Andy Barnard and Sam Chan visited the pre-dinner and answered some questions, so it was quite the treat from what I hear! The crowds were so big for Fairfax this year, that Roy Thomson Hall's pavillion did not clear until after 2pm! Our MPIC Fund's AGM started a bit later than usual, and we had about 45 people in there. It was great to meet everyone and answer their questions! Alnesh, our directors Andrew Cooke and Glen Rollins, and I all had a great time! All total, we raised about $12,800 for the CCFC, and I'm probably going to throw a little more into there, so I can say we raised $13,000+ this year! ;D I'll post some pictures once Alnesh transfers them over from his camera. My thanks go out to Prem, Francis, Pat Hios, Vinodh Loganadhan and Paul Rivett for everything! We'll see you all next year! Sanjeev

Article on Prem and Fairfax. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-27/watsa-who-models-buffett-sees-housing-bubble-corporate-canada.html?cmpid=yhoo

You're more than welcome Eddie! But really, Fairfax deserves all of the credit, and then all of you for supporting the dinner. It's tiring, but I have a hell of a lot of fun organizing the event. The unsung hero in all of this is Francis Chou. He's the one who quietly came to our first dinner...and then every one after that while convincing others to join. He's the one that thinks about who people might like to meet, like he did for those of you at the pre-dinner event. It's that quiet, humble guy, that only knows how to help others, who gave Prem the idea of float...who befriended a guy running a message board...and just goes about his way, day to day, working as honorably as he can. And I'm glad that many of you are finally catching on to him...as there were about 20 of you still surrounding him at 11:45pm at our dinner! Cheers!

NormR will be providing details for all of you, as he was our resident scribe! I'll be posting something probably on Monday, as I'm still catching up on everything. It was crazy busy at both our dinner and the Fairfax AGM. Huge success at both, and Prem did not let us down...in fact he upped it all another notch! It was great to see all of you and thanks for your support! Cheers!

Wow, I'm surprised there wasn't even a single offer! Although I thought the minimum bid was high. Cheers! http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2012/04/23/no-one-bids-on-dinner-at-warren-buffetts-childhood-home/?mod=yahoo_hs

Another article speculating on who it is. Cheers! http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304331204577355901445439744.html?ru=yahoo&mod=yahoo_hs

I hope the Sens take it. Will be tough though. Cheers!

It's busy both days, but if you come Saturday, you will miss out on the Friday evening festivities. Cheers!

BTW, I still think Caps will take it. I hope so! For the finals, I have Nashville and Philadelphia pegged. Cheers!

Yes, unfortunately my beloved Canucks are out! I think Lou needs a fresh start, and he's not going to get that here with Schneider becoming a star. I think Tampa needs a goalie and Lou's wife and her family live in Florida. Mason Raymond is gone. Vigneault is probably gone. Kesler was almost invisible for most of this series, and if it wasn't for the Sedins, Dan Hamhuis and the goalies, this would have been over in four straight. On top of that, those bastards in Boston are probably going to knock out Washington now too! Geez! Cheers!

Feel sorry for the investors that got burned, but kind of funny. They start young now don't they! Cheers! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-news/british-teen-twins-faked-robot-in-stock-fraud-us-sec-alleges/article2409298/

Jeff, thanks for the reply. My main point was that for anyone investing in BH...be careful! It's all or nothing with this guy. He goes in 100% with every idea, and one day it is going to backfire. The true reason behind the compensation package was because he would have had nothing if Steak'n Shake did go under. Everything would have been lost...Lion Fund, Western, all of it. Now he's taken debt out at Steak'n Shake, so that he can plunder Cracker Barrel. Either he becomes very, very rich...or we watch an implosion one day on some idea. And if that happens, left in the carnage will be all of his words and all of the other shareholders. There was no valid reason for the name change. There was no valid reason for the increased compensation package. There was no valid reason to take out debt at Steak'n Shake. And now there is no valid reason to remove the compensation cap. It's not about incentives and aligning interests...there is only one interest and he is running the company! Cheers!

If the company is earning a billion dollars a year (which, I have little doubt that it eventually will) to me, it seems reasonable that the guy would arguably deserve more than $10 million bucks. Also, as Sardar is forced to buy stock with his compensation and there are fewer shares outstanding, he will be bidding the price up for the remaining shareholders. Not exactly an intrinsic value thing, but, a nice plus for remaining shareholders. All things equal, if there was a single share remaining, under Biglari's compensation agreement, it would basically have unlimited worth, as he would have to buy it. Granted, at that point, they could reverse split out of it, but, it's an interesting thing to think about. Wow! Do you really believe that Jeff? The $10M cap is in place, but he said that will probably disappear. Do you think he's really going to continually buy stock above intrinsic value? You don't think that requirement could disappear as easily as the cap? The only reason he's buying any stock in BH is because he wants to make sure he controls as many votes as he can. Once he's got enough votes to permanently secure his position, and actually then justify the name he implemented, it's going to be to hell with all of you and any restrictions on his conduct. In response, you're going to tell me that it's ok, because you'd be out by then and would have made alot of money. But the truth is, any existing BH shareholder from now till that point, would have simply facilitated this whole unholy mess. I have no doubt Sardar will be a billionaire one day...but he's going to do it on the backs of corporate shareholders...and none of those shareholders will be worth a fraction of what he will. Frankly, I can't believe he actually said that the cap would eventually be removed. That's just nuts to even say it. Cheers!

By the way, when Sardar said that he would eventually remove the $10M cap at the AGM, did any of you guys ask why the $10M cap was instituted in the first place? There is no ethical answer for that is there? It was simply to get the votes to approve the compensation plan. How anyone can remain a shareholder after he said that is beyond me? Do you guys really put money that far ahead of ethics? Actually hearing this now makes my stomach turn. Cheers!

Wow, two articles on Prem and Fairfax today! From what I understand, expect a massive crowd this year for the AGM. The number I'm hearing is 900-1000 people...about double last year! I hope Roy Thomson Hall can fit that many. Cheers! http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/04/20/is-this-company-the-next-berkshire-hathaway-/

Article on Prem and Fairfax. Cheers! http://www.streetauthority.com/international-investing/how-invest-warren-buffett-canada-459154

He doesn't need the shareholders anymore, as he controls more votes than anyone else. That was the master plan. Anyone who thinks that the intrinsic value of BH is anywhere near where it is trading right now is mistaken, because over time a greater and greater portion will go to him. You have to discount it by at least 30%! Cheers!

Hi 14Value, Please contact me directly at cornermarketcapital@gmail.com. We have no dinner tickets left, but we have presentation tickets available at $50 + tax. Cheers!

Shouldn't that be a "Buffett" menu? ;) I posted the menu, because everyone was always asking me "Watsa" on the "Buffett" menu? ;D Oh, that was just too much, huh? Cheers!

Hard to find CEO's who just dig right in, tear it apart, and rebuild. With rates so low, and spreads narrowing, banks have to cut expenses and get more efficient. He's just shrinking this sucker to a really ideal level...very focused. Using Well's cross-selling objective is also better for BAC, so I'm happy the mailings are out and retail contact is where everything is going to be happening. Cheers!

No real dress code. Some people come in suits and some people come in jeans and a t-shirt. I think you'd probably be most comfortable in business casual...especially with our new, more posh, environment! ;D Truth is, Fairfax wanted the event to remain pretty casual, true to its roots, and not too formal. Cheers!