Parsad

Hi Folks, Tomorrow is the 11th Anniversary of the board. So, what could be a better anniversary gift than hearing Steve Cohan may soon finally have to close shop! In it's former incarnation, "The MSN Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder's Board", was simply someplace for me and a few of my Berkshire friends to hangout. It grew to become a safe haven for Fairfax Financial shareholders during the epic (at least in our minds) bear raid in 2003 after Fairfax listed in New York. I've made a ton of wonderful friends on here, and it's catalogued my experiences, both in life and the investment community. So thank you for listening and being my friend! I used to do occasional interviews with people related to the value-investing community. So I thought I would include all of the interviews conducted. There was one from Irwin Michaels as well, but after a couple of revisits and revisions, he was still unhappy with the end product, so we nixed the interview...unfortunately, I cannot include it. But it certainly is fun reading some of these interviews from back then...hope you enjoy them! Cheers! Interview_With_Mohnish_Pabrai_-_October_21_2003.pdf Interview_With_John_Zemanovich_-_November_14_2003.pdf Interview_With_Amitabh_Singhi.pdf Interview_With_Andy_Kilpatrick_-_July_17_2003.pdf Interview_With_Tim_McElvaine_-_January_18_2005.pdf Interview_With_John_Linnartz_-_April_3_2009.pdf Interview_With_Sardar_Biglari_-_October_27_2004.pdf Interview_With_Jonathan_Wellum_-_June_5_2003.pdf Interview_With_Larry_Sarbit_-_July_29_2004.pdf

The SEC suit is predicated on the deposition Cohan gave during Fairfax's case. Prem may win this one after all! Good riddance to rubbish! Cheers!

Japan's 2% target is going to be a bit low: http://www.oanda.com/currency/historical-rates/ Cheers!

On the other hand, the substance of your post indicates that you are saying that both companies are/were trading under IV, but that there was some probability (perhaps, a high probability) that the IV at DELL and SHLD would be destroyed through mal-investment or non-optimal capital allocation (opportunity cost of not monetizing assets and reinvesting). Hi Tx, yes this is exactly what I was referring to. This potential for destruction (or growth) of capital allocation occurs in any business, but there has been a sort of history for the last few years that destruction was occurring at SHLD, and to a lesser degree at DELL. It doesn't mean that is what is going to happen long-term, but management either missed the boat for a period of time, or have decided to transition the business and are somewhat at the mercy of competition. I suspect Mohnish does not believe these trends are going to be reversed...I'm sort of ambivalent...I think it could go either way. Cheers!

He certainly did! :D Microsoft, Silver Lake, SEAM, et al, including Sanjeev, thought otherwise. And that's what great about this board. We tend to give our opinions even when they are contrary to the greats. We should qualify what Mohnish said about DELL, and I think this is his thinking about SHLD. He believed Dell will destroy shareholder value long-term...more the business and the competition it faced. Whereas I thought DELL was cheap on a nominal basis. These two ideas aren't mutually exclusive. So I'm not sure Mohnish was wrong long-term...he was just wrong about the value in the short-term. We are out of Dell now and we would have been out at a certain price regardless of the buyout...probably in the $15-18 range. The buyout actually ended up being less than what we would have preferred to sell at, so it wasn't quite the home-run that we hoped for. We did very well in a short-period of time, but not a grand slam. I think SHLD may be similiar. On a nominal basis, it is somewhat cheap, but that doesn't mean that long-term destruction of value won't continue to happen. It's a rotten business with very good assets...now how do you monetize those assets before that rotten business eats it all up? So far, it's eaten a massive chunk! I think you've got a reasonably good chance with Eddie and Bruce controlling it, but they could do what Dell did and screw shareholders over as well. And so far, Eddie's results of monetizing those assets has been very subpar. Cheers!

I really like the quote: There is a famous quote: if wealth is lost, nothing is lost. If health is lost, something is lost and if character is lost, everything is lost. Also, he says his family is the 2nd largest investor in the fund...who the hell is first! He's got like $40-45M in there...must be an endowment or something. Very good interview! Cheers!

Pretty long interview with Mohnish in Outlook India: http://business.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?283880 Also interviews with other value investors, including Howard Marks & Wilbur Ross: http://business.outlookindia.com/content.aspx?site=2&issue=10969 Cheers!

I don't think this day-trading experience is going to end well. I'm sure there are plenty of people day-trading again, if a 16 year old actress is having success and getting publicity. As she says, she doesn't like low-risk type of things, and she's getting a high off the trading. No fundamentals...at some point you always get burned. Cheers!

I used to date a girl who would get turned on by finance talk. She herself was in finance, but knew little about investing. But she could listen to me all day and it would be sexy for her. Maybe we could get a few of these women to show up at our dinner and events, as they seem to be almost completely male-dominated! Cheers!

From things I have heard in the recent past about Buffett's personal portfolio, I believe he could do 50% a year...with small sums as he stated...but it would not take long for it to be well above that threshold and the impact of size would start to affect results. So if Buffett could start again now with $1M, which is what he was discussing when he made that statement, I think he could compound at 50% a year for about 12, maybe 15 years...which would get him close to half a billion...I think 15 would be pushing it. From there I think you would see diminishing returns as the number of opportunities decreases. Cheers!

They'll occur...especially when markets are extremely volatile, because the psychology has not changed. If you remember what things were like in late 2008 and early 2009, most value investors were out of the market and analysts were wringing their hands because they didn't even have time to adjust target prices as stocks fell. How many people bought GE at $6 or WFC at $9? How many bought BAC at $5 a little while ago. I remember no one was buying SHLD short-term debt...maturing in just over a year and it was trading at 65 cents on the dollar! With more attention and more eyes on the markets, plus all sorts of dark pools of capital, I think we've actually compressed time frames and you get far more inefficiencies in prices. The one area where there are truly fewer opportunities is arbitrage where computerized trading has just been able to exploit it to their advantage. Cheers!

Sorry that your friend and his family are going through this 14Value! I think you are getting plenty of good advice. Just trust your instincts...be there for them now, and especially be there later on when all the family and friends disperse, and few people are around to help them cope. For your friend and his family, the loss will never go away...especially in cases where someone's life is left completely unfulfilled like a child with so much promise and time ahead of him. Every day going forward, they will always think about what could have been, what more they could/would have liked to do and say. Slowly, they will just learn to live with it and somehow cope. For many, they never fully do cope and a normal life is not possible as the emotional/mental turmoil is too much. All you can do is remain a good friend and offer any support you can. For many, keeping busy over time allows one to forget for a while. Cheers!

I am huge believer in copying but please tell us what your copying so I can copy your copy of Pabrai's copy. :D LOL! We would all like to copy the copy when you get the copy. Cheers!

RoughlyRight's son takes great notes. Thanks for posting! Cheers!

Personally, I find "7) Scuttlebutt" the least useful. It's more for my own interest and a little more understanding of the business, than any real value about whether it is a good investment. Business biographies are often useless as well...they give a historical perspective, but really do not assist you in finding investments that are out of favor. I find the newspapers useful. Mainly for a general understanding of what is going on in the world, as well as often I find an idea or industry that is out of favor and the newspapers are just ripping into it. Magazines, trade publications, television (including Bloomberg, PBS, CNBC, etc) all work for the same reasons as newspapers. The most useful thing is reading 10-Q's and 10-K's. Digging into various businesses, building that circle out and formulating an extensive library in your own head for easy, quick reference. I could not have imagined 10 years ago, that I would grasp the hundreds of stocks that are now in my head, or the dozens of companies I follow everyday and can value in just a few minutes. If for some reason their price falls a significant amount for an inexplicable or irrational reason, it's very easy to just buy that business. You also end up creating mental checklists rather than actual checklists like many people recommend you use. The one thing that I don't use yet, but probably will get in the next couple of years is a Bloomberg terminal. I generally get our brokers to dig up anything I'm interested in and then send me quotes, screenshots, etc. But I can see that I would be able to do alot of things on a Bloomberg terminal, that take up alot more time now by trying it to do it manually or through other sources. Cheers!

Yes, it is marked to market. Cheers!

Francis has sold off about 80% of his BAC warrants, doubled down on DELL, added MBIA and eliminated Office Depot. Cheers! http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1389403/000114420413008799/v335242_13fhr.txt

Cash rich, liquid, hedged Fort Knox...status quo at Fairfax as they are still concerned...book value is $378/share. Cheers!

Here they are: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/fairfax-financial-holdings-limited-financial-220200180.html Cheers!

Nice call Petey! Cheers!

They aren't posting because they don't want more people there! ;D Selfish pricks! Cheers!

Guy was at our dinner last year, as well as the FFH AGM. Cheers!

Yeah, they would do well, but they'd be competing with alot of local chains, as well as Famous Dave's. They would need to have someone who knows how to really franchise. Cheers!

Yes, there used to be one there. I think it's some sort of Lounge now. Cheers!

For you restaurant business junkies like myself. Ignite is buying Romano's from Golden Gate Capital for $55M. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ignite-buy-romanos-macaroni-224952504.html Pretty good deal, since Golden Gate bought it from Brinkers in 2008 for $131.5M! Cheers! http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/08/18/us-brinker-romanos-idUSWNAB758320080818