Parsad

Partnerships are flow-through vehicles. Tax is not paid by the partnership, but flows through directly to the partners with their allocation of dividends, interest, long-term and short-term capital gains. The partnership needs to recalculate the NAV after each new contribution or redemption. The allocation of income (realized and unrealized) is also calculated for all partners at the same time. We do our calculation each month. So all of the income is distributed at the end of each month. If a partner joins say April 1st, then they do not receive any portion of the gains realized or unrealized from the previous month. They would only receive their proportional income from April 1st onwards during their holding period. I haven't read the audited financials for many funds, in particular their full monthly accounting statements, so I can't say how others are doing it...I can only speak for our fund. Cheers!

Former CEO of AIG, Hank Greenberg, has sold his shares to UBS. Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/35980381

Melvyn Weiss, of Milberg Weiss fame...you know, those rat bastard lawyers who assisted many of the naked short hedge funds...is a free man again. I'm sure some philanthropy like Milken will restore his name over the next decade. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=awQckBIC.AiQ&pos=13

Long-time Fairfax director Anthony Griffiths was on BNN yesterday. Some interesting comments on corporate governance. Cheers! http://watch.bnn.ca/#clip277017

I'm perturbed by the fact that after such a catastrophic credit crisis, mostly created by off-balance sheet risk from derivatives, the U.S. government is taking an overly measured approach to regulating this market. This article discusses how 97% of the notional value of derivatives contracts in the banking industry are under the control Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=af6uIAFTSorY&pos=10

Good video. It will be interesting to see who they have in the book. At the same time, I have a bit of a problem with this analysis. According to the other article written on Burry that was posted here two weeks ago, Burry had put a fair amount of his main fund into credit default swaps. He also started a separate fund that focused solely on swaps. What if the mortgage insanity went on for another five-six years. He would have investors pulling out as the fund is losing money on the swap premiums and required collateral. I think the media always focuses on investment success, but never focuses on the risk also accepted by the investor. Kudos to Burry for benefitting from all this, but he had a considerable amount riding on it. In Fairfax's case, they had a total of about $500M invested in swaps, relative to an investment portfolio of about $15B at the time. Cheers!

I'm guessing his fridge is pretty big too! ;D Cheers!

Buffett's house tops the list...for it's lack of gaudiness and a representation of humility...unlike the rest! Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/109053/homes-of-the-billionaires

BYD had a blow-out quarter. Now only a 56 times forward PE! ;D Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Chinas-BYD-says-Q4-profit-rb-3875383964.html?x=0

I'm sure that will be in the video montage before the AGM starts. Pretty damn funny! Cheers!

Wednesday April 21st - Evening Fairfax Financial Shareholder's Dinner Our annual Fairfax Financial Shareholder's Dinner is coming up again. Last year, Francis Chou of the Chou Funds came...Francis has been at all of our dinners! Fairfax Financial sent Sam Mitchell, Brian Bradstreet & Wayne Cadwallader. It was an amazing opportunity to ask questions and listen to answers from some of the best investors in North America. Joe Badali's 156 Front Street West Toronto, Ontario Drinks: 6:30pm Dinner: 7:00pm Q & A: 8:00pm-9:30pm RSVP: sanjeevparsad@shaw.ca Admission: $5/head with all proceeds going to the "Crohn's Colitis Foundation of Canada" in memory of Joann Butler (Corner Market Capital Corporation will match all admissions) Thursday April 22nd - Morning Fairfax Financial Annual General Meeting Roy Thomson Hall 60 Simcoe Street Toronto, Ontario 9:30 am Recommend you come a bit early. Feel free to wear Fairfax hats at the meeting! Thursday April 22nd - Afternoon We'll also be holding our fund's annual general meeting again immediately after the Fairfax meeting. Same building...no need to walk far! MPIC Funds Annual General Meeting Roy Thomson Hall Green Room/Pickering Room 60 Simcoe Street Toronto, Ontario Meet & Greet: 1:30-2:30pm Presentation: 2:30pm-3:00pm Q & A: 3:00pm-4:30pm Light Snacks & Refreshments Will Be Served RSVP: sanjeevparsad@shaw.ca See you in Toronto! Cheers!

Looks like the SEC is pushing for CDS regulation...about friggin' time! Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/35831890

Hawk, I don't want to comment too much as we are greater than 5% shareholders, but your assumption is correct. Palisades, who have been supportive of CCLR for many years, had to liquidate their holdings in their fund during the credit crisis and have been trying to sell their shares slowly over the last year and a half. Cheers!

I think we should buy six packs of Coke at 25 cents and sell them for 30 cents to all the AGM attendees! ;D Cheers!

Europe has moved to restrict trading in credit default swaps. I believe they are ahead of the curve. "If derivatives had to be traded on exchanges, you'd have records of how these transactions happened. If hedge funds had to make filings of their holdings, there'd be some record. But if you don't have either one, that's a real challenge," said Bruce Baird, who formerly led the white-collar-crime unit in Manhattan for the Justice Department. "That's a very, very long road" to find evidence of wrongdoing. Cheers! http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/09/AR2010030903767.html?hpid=sec-business

Whitney Tilson's partner Glenn Tongue discusses the housing market, as well as briefly commenting on Berkshire and Fairfax. I like Glenn's ability to restrain his comments, especially on short positions. Something I was always more critical of when Whitney was interviewed. Cheers! http://tiny.cc/z5FXa

The same car we rented a week ago for $373, for four days is now $750 for the same four days! They must be very close to being out of vehicles. Crazy! Cheers!

I'm sure Buffett enjoys his life immensely, but the amount of security that the poor guy requires these days is crazy. It must be tough living like that...I'm sure other celebrities have the same problem. Cheers! http://www.dailypress.com/business/nationworld/sns-ap-us-berkshire-hathaway-executive-compensatio,0,1706456.story

Hi Folks, As I mentioned in the past, all posts on ITEX will be removed from the board while we continue working with management on increasing shareholder value in the company. At some point in time, you will be free to discuss ITEX on this board, but not as long as we are participating in our endeavour. Thanks very much!

Jones Soda was sold off for $10M to Reed's. Not sure why Coke or Pepsi didn't get into this one...would have been a great little addition for either at a good price. Cheers! http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/09/smallbusiness/jones_soda/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin

Sanjeev just curious why you dont have BRK in the mix? Is it because of Buffett's age? Age and size of Berkshire now. We own only a single post-split BRKB share in our corporate account at present. Not that we wouldn't buy Berkshire. We bought some a few months ago, and we would buy it again whenever it's cheap. But at it's size in particular, the returns are going to be very difficult to generate unless you see markets collapse like they did a year ago. With $130B in equity, if Berkshire wants to allocate the equivalent of 5% of equity into an idea, you are talking about $6.5B. If they want to own 15% of their target company, it would have to be a company worth a minimum of $43B. If they want to own 7.5% of their target company, you are talking about a business worth $86B! Their universe of potential investments is just so small now. That's why Buffett is doing deals like Burlington Northern and at an average price. You now have to buy mountains to move the needle a tiny bit. Good investment managers will be able to do far better on their own. For the average investor, you are still better off owning Berkshire than the S&P500, but there are much better alternatives out there now for investors who know what they are doing. Cheers!

kawikaho, this isn't necessarily directed at you but what happens if someone had deposits over the FDIC limit? I believe so far, with the size of the losses and implicit guarantee by the government, no investor has lost a single dollar of their deposits...even if they were above the FDIC limits. As each bank fails, the deposits are transferred over to the new host institution, and depending on the agreement between the new host institution and the FDIC, there is some cost sharing of the losses incurred by the former bank that held the deposits. As far as I know, so far all deposits have been secure...every single dollar. Now that isn't to say all deposits would be secure if one of the major institutions fails, especially with certain off-balance sheet guarantees that are well beyond the abilities of the FDIC to handle, but so far I believe deposits have been safe. With the amount of scrutiny in the banks capital ratios at the moment, the government seems to have a pretty good handle on issues. Cheers!

As per my usual reading at this time of year, for anyone interested in reading Fairfax's 2009 Proxy Circular...here it is. Cheers! http://www.fairfax.ca/Assets/Downloads/CIRC2009_Fairfax.pdf

As long as you don't eat it with the vegetables Uhuru! That would be kind of gross. ;D Cheers!

For those interested, Fremont's 10-K is also out today. Cheers! http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1271245/000119312510049013/d10k.htm