Parsad

What a fine coincidence that we've been hacked twice in a week! We've never had such a problem in a year and a half, and now suddenly twice in a week. What are the odds of that? ;D Being a Fairfax shareholder, I'm not one who bows down to coincidence in such cases. Anyway, I've finally got it up and running today. I apologize for the site being down, but hey it's just a coincidence! Cheers!

What a fine coincidence that we've been hacked twice in a week! We've never had such a problem in a year and a half, and now suddenly twice in a week. What are the odds of that? ;D Being a Fairfax shareholder, I'm not one who bows down to coincidence in such cases. Anyway, I've finally got it up and running today. I apologize for the site being down, but hey it's just a coincidence! Cheers!

What a fine coincidence that we've been hacked twice in a week! We've never had such a problem in a year and a half, and now suddenly twice in a week. What are the odds of that? ;D Being a Fairfax shareholder, I'm not one who bows down to coincidence in such cases. Anyway, I've finally got it up and running today. I apologize for the site being down, but hey it's just a coincidence! Cheers!

Prem discussed underwriting in detail during the AGM. He said that their combined ratios will appear to be very high, but that is because they are contracting their book of business dramatically at the moment, while expenses are not going to contract as fast. You cannot reduce customer service to existing clients, even though you are decreasing underwriting because of poor premium rates. When premium rates harden, you will see the momentum in Fairfax's underwriting. The market will miss this because they will be preoccupied with the higher CR's right now. Wait till you see what these guys do in a hard market! Cheers!

Another article on the upcoming AGM weekend. Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/At-Buffett-gala-all-that-rb-1167539222.html?x=0&.v=1

Article from Morningstar on the BRK AGM. Cheers! http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=334684

Hi Folks, Please use this thread if you want to post various meeting places, events, etc for the weekend. Here is a link to Berkshire's visitor's guide which is very useful for anyone attending the AGM: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/meet01/VisGuide2010.pdf Alnesh and I will be at most events and we look forward to meeting anyone attending. I'll be the fellow with the blue "MPIC Funds" baseball cap on. For those coming out the first time, enjoy the experience...the Mecca of Capitalism! Cheers!

Like all institutions, it looks like Berkshire will also be required to put up collateral for derivatives contracts. Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/36778375

Does Canadian/US securities law-reg FD etc. not require them to make a filing/disclose the 2010 presentation at the same time as or before the annual meeting so that all shareholders can see it? The law applies only if there is material information that wasn't previously available. Nothing discussed at the AGM was previously undisclosed in quarterly reports, annual reports, or individual filings. I'm sure they will put up the slides soon enough. Cheers!

By the way, I thought of you Sanj when they were serving those mini burgers. Quite tasty. What did you think.(I was quite hungry after missing breakfast) I didn't get to eat one! You only get a certain amount of time to see everyone each year, so I was saying hi to everyone and didn't eat anything. I just had a Coke just before our own AGM started. The day before, I did go to my usual haunt when in Toronto for what I consider the best mini-burgers I've ever had. It's at a place called Trevor's Kitchen & Bar. A little funky restaurant in the lower level of a heritage building...38 Wellington Street East. They make these little Kobe beef mini-burgers...by far the best mini-burgers I've ever eaten. I make a trip there every year when I go to Toronto and make sure I get to taste them. If you go before 6pm (they open at 4pm), they are half price at the bar. Cheers!

Al, Kilroy, Alnesh and I were talking about that this afternoon, when there were only the three of us left at the MPIC AGM. Your name came up as one of the nine that were there on that first dinner five years ago. Cheers!

Hi Folks, I would just like to thank all the people who attended our fifth annual "Fairfax Financial Shareholder's Dinner". First of all, we raised $3,820 for the "Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of Canada" in honor of Jo Ann Butler, with a few more contributions still coming in. We hope to have raised close to $5K when all is said and done. We could not have done it without all your support! The generosity was overwhelming...attendees were just handing over $20 bills instead of $5...a few people wrote checks, handed over hundreds of dollars or bought handfuls of raffle tickets! We would like to thank Prem, Pat Hios and the rest of Fairfax Financial for the raffle prizes, as well as our director Andrew Cooke for the See's Candies he donated, and Alnesh and his accounting partner, Paul Robertson, for the wine they donated as prizes. We'd also like to thank Joe Badali's Restaurant for allowing us to hold our dinner there, and to their staff for patiently catering to our needs well past closing! Once again, Fairfax was very supportive of the dinner and were well-represented. Our guests from Hamblin-Watsa were Sam Mitchell, Brian Bradstreet and Peter Furlan, and of course our honorary chairman for the panel - Francis Chou of the Chou Funds! They answered question after question for about an hour and a half. Brian ended up staying till about 11pm and I had to actually intervene because the group of shareholders around him had lots and lots of questions. The AGM was well-attended and everyone was in a jovial mode. I won't expound too much on the meeting, as I'm sure there are plenty of other boardmembers who will be posting their notes. Prem was one of the last people to leave and was working the room as I've never seen before. It was actually quite funny because Pat and Vinod had to try and get him to the Presidents meeting, but Prem was absolutely engaging all the shareholders and answering every question they had, so it was an almost impossible task to drag him away. Needless to say, anyone who attended could not walk away from the event without completely grasping the culture of the company from the top down. Like any first rate organization, Prem sets the tone and the humility, ethics, and shareholder-friendly culture trickles down every layer of the company. I cannot emphasize how important it is for any long-term shareholder to come to the annual general meeting at least once. You do that and you won't ever sell a share! Finally, I'd like to thank all of the attendees at the MPIC Funds AGM, especially our partners! We hold the event for you guys and want to celebrate your trust and support. On behalf of Alnesh and myself, we look forward to seeing you all again next year! Cheers!

Hi Onyx, That is a very generous gesture! Thanks very much. Cheers!

About friggin' time! Cheers!

Mark Mitchell has a story on the Goldman Sachs saga. Interesting how many people in this story have worked with or for Michael Milken in the past. Cheers! http://www.deepcapture.com/goldman-sachs-john-paulson-and-the-hedge-funds-that-pumped-and-dumped-our-economy/

That's incredibly generous Dazel! I will post the grand total on Friday. Hope you can make it next year! Cheers!

The real risk for Goldman is all the idiots who will now come out of the woodwork to recoup losses that Goldman isn't really to blame for...such as AIG! http://www.cnbc.com/id/36656434 I can already see perma-tan man Angelo Mozillo blaming Countrywide's demise somehow on Goldman's advice. Goldman is guilty of playing both sides of the field and hiding material information, but a lot of people did alot of stupid things that had nothing to do with Goldman. Cheers!

I thought this was a funny article. Apparently, the first president of the United States owes roughly $4,577 in late fees, on two books checked out in 1789 from the New York Public Library. Cheers! http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/04/19/george.washington.overdue.books/index.html?hpt=T2

I didn't notice on the board if anyone else put this article up, but apparently former Paulson manager Paolo Pelligrini cooperated with the SEC in the case against Goldman! Cheers! http://in.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idINIndia-47764420100416

I don't feel sorry for the investors that lost money, since they put it at risk to begin with. My problem is with disclosure and with the ethics of being an oversized Wall Street bookie! Let me ask a simple question: Goldman lost $90M on the deal with a $15M fee...how much did they make going short on these deals alongside Paulson between 2007 and 2009? Here's an article I read back in 2007 that concerned me about the ethical dilemma Goldman found themselves in. It wasn't an issue for anyone back then other than a handful of people. Today they are involved in a huge civil suit by the Federal Government. The question asked in the article and the one I continue to ask today is "Why did Goldman continue to peddle CDOs to customers early this year (2007) while its own traders were betting that CDO values would fall?" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/14/how-goldman-won-big-on-mo_n_76888.html Cheers!

Hi Folks, We cannot take any more attendees for the dinner this year, as the room we booked has a maximum capacity of 75 people...double our attendance last year! Anyone who received the confirmation email on the weekend, or this morning as well, you are good to go for the dinner. Next year we will book the room next door as well! When you come into the restaurant, let them know you are attending the "Fairfax Financial Shareholder's Dinner". The room is at the back of the restaurant on the left hand side. You'll see a large banner near the front of the room with "Corner Market Capital" on it. Please pay the $5 admission when you pick up your nametag. It looks like we'll be able to raise a nice sum of funds for the "Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of Canada". Thanks very much for everyone's support! Look forward to seeing you all. Cheers! Fairfax Financial Shareholder's Dinner Wednesday, April 21, 2010 Joe Badali's Restaurant 156 Front Street West Toronto, Ontario Drinks: 6:30pm Dinner: 7:00pm Q & A: 8:00pm-9:30pm

I think shareholder's may have a case, since it is certainly a material event. Whether they should have told Buffett or not is another matter, since he is a shareholder and shouldn't be privy to material information that isn't public. I don't think he knew...because if he did, Buffett would have made them go public. Cheers!

I don't agree with most of the sentiment Alice Schroder expresses in this article, but I do agree with the comment about whether Goldman informed Buffett about the SEC investigation when it first started months ago. Or did Goldman hide it from Buffett? Will be interesting to hear what Warren and Charlie say about this at the AGM. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=adbst.qXhw9s

Agreed. I doubt there would be as much indignation if people understood the nature of a synthetic CDO. In every synthetic, someone (or sometimes many) must be short. In the institutional arena, this is an accepted fact and it is not required information for disclosure. If it were required, where would it end? Did Prem's motivation get disclosed when his handpicked CDS contracts were placed in corporate synthetic CDO's? Did WEB's motivation get disclosed to the sellers when he bought back his customized put options on the S&P? How about PIMCO selling Treasuries they think will underperform to mutual funds, would that need to be disclosed too? How about any institution that had input into the construction of a specialized ETF that intended to short it, should that be disclosed also? The answer is no because the counterparties are institutional investors with research capabilities, not babes in the woods. I could understand your analogy if they were going after Paulson...they are not. They are going after Goldman, who was the bookie. The problem was that the game was fixed...they knew the outcome and were betting on it. There is a very clear ethical dilemma in what they did...even back when they were actually doing it, not just in hindsight. The federal government believes that the context of their argument is in the best interest of investors. I couldn't agree more! Are they the only ones guilty? Of course not. Should the counterparties and other investors be held responsible for their losses? Yes, and they have lost fortunes. Cheers!

Goldman Sachs leveraged real estate fund, Whitehall Street International, lost 98 cents on the dollar for investors. Another round of applause for the titans of Wall Street! At least Goldman lost the most in the fund. Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/36591654