Parsad

They've released the details of the cases below. The infected seem to end in the names Sender, Greenberg, Antar, Eavis, Cramer, Rocker & Contogouris. How bizarre! ;D Cheers! http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/23/swine.flu/index.html

Well, the stupidity of some of those questions becomes glaringly obvious once the reader realizes who the source is...Jeff Mathews? C'mon! On the other hand, there are a couple that are interesting: #1, #6 & #9. Number ten is probably the most assinine thing Mathews could ask, and about on par for him. Cheers!

Interesting article on Bill Ackman. He's a smart guy, but I don't like the way he necessarily does things. Anyway, the article is a good read. Cheers! http://www.portfolio.com/executives/2009/04/22/Hedge-Fund-Manager-Bill-Ackman

Good point John! Cheers!

I think the mistake was to be adamant about choosing ONLY 10 stocks and allocating 10% each. When you are dealing with wide array of companies with various risks and rewards, how can you justify allocating almost exactly 10% of your capital in each? Ah Kumar, I see what you are saying. You mean putting exactly 10% in one idea regardless of the quality of the idea. You don't have an issue with the concentration itself. Cheers!

You can! Come to the Fairfax AGM one of these days, and you'll be able to say hello. Better yet, you'll be able to listen to him speak, and meet all the terrific managers who work for Fairfax. Cheers!

Also, his 10x10 approach was a mistake. He is changing. An investor has to do what he's comfortable with, but I don't think that was the problem. In fact, I think it's probably a mistake to now switch to a less concentrated portfolio, since such dramatic losses have already happened. Now going forward, he has to find 20-30 positions, each will have less of an impact and he has to focus on far more businesses. It's less efficient than what he was doing. I think the real problem was the correlated risk of various businesses that could be impacted by a severe economic downturn and the leverage utilized by a couple. Normally, without hedging or shorting, he probably would have fallen on par with the markets. Because of some of the indirect, but correlated risk from businesses like DFC, CCRT, PNCL, HNR and SHLD, he suffered worse than the markets. If he stuck to his strategy, going forward the gains would be commensurate with the losses over time. Cheers!

No, Berkowitz was down 30% in 2008. Prem not only side-stepped, but made a huge profit. My friend Peter Lindmark of Lindmark Capital also crushed the market in 2008. Cheers!

Waterloo Record article on Prem. Cheers! http://news.therecord.com/Business/article/523889

Thanks Joey! Good stuff. Cheers!

Mohnish had a very tough year, but he's always been honest about his performance. For many years now, he's always warned his investors that the large outperformances can't continue. He doesn't short, hedge or use any sort of derivative. He's also never shut down redemptions from his fund. So, while he's had a bonecrushing year, he's never compromised his principles. He also remains the single-largest investor in the fund. His own personal networth went from over $50M down to $17M, so he suffers in exact proportion to his investors. What more can you want? I'm sure there are many, many managers who would like to do 2008 all over again, but you can't. You learn from your mistakes, become a better investor, and stay true to your partners. That's all you can really do. Cheers!

I agree with your comments John. Virtually no one was spared in this environment. At the same time though, there are plenty of lessons for everyone, including many of the Tiger Woods of investing, since we've all learned exactly what Buffett meant by how a long string of successes multiplied by one failure can be catastrophic. Cheers!

Thanks very much epictetus! Prem is very fortunate. He has a very lovely family. His wife Nalini is also as caring as Prem. Each year, she says hi to me and asks me how I am and how the funds are doing. Those things trickle down to everyone else. Cheers!

Jeff Stacey of Stacey Muirhead is on the board of trustees overseeing Waterloo's endowment fund. Jeff has been a long-time shareholder in Fairfax...many, many years through the good times and bad. So there are two value guys at Waterloo now! Cheers!

You're only repeating my words. Well, actually I wasn't. I believe this is what you said: That's her field of legal skill, and besides, she's restricted by law from touching specific matters she dealt with during her incumbency. My comments related to her defending those under SEC investigation, not just cases she dealt with. The point is that a public servant violates no ethical boundries as long as he/she doesn't deal with the same persons he/she dealt with on the "other side". To claim otherwise is hypocritical and violates his/her rights of self-employment. In certain countries it is even permitted to deal with the same matters or entities a public servant dealt with during his incumbncy, after a year or so from his/her leave. Just because something is permitted, doesn't mean it's averse of any moral quandry. Why are audit firms prevented from directly owning shares of companies they deal with, but attorneys are not? Isn't it the same thing? The moral and ethical dilemma is perversely obvious, yet it is permitted. As for you second point - perhaps it wasn't Byrne's main point, but it was yours. Again, I don't think your reading the actual subject matter before posting. This is a direct quote from Byrne's article: That would be the same Linda Thomsen who, for the entire 14 year duration of her service in the Enforcement Division of the SEC (the last four as Director), missed the $67-billion-and-counting walking Ponzi scheme/human brown stain known as Bernie Madoff, though concerned citizen Harry Markopolis not only did the work for the Enforcement Division, he all but spray-painted his findings on the lovely Italian marble of the SEC’s posh new DC headquarters.

Hi Folks, I would just like to say it was great to meet everyone again this year in Toronto. I apologize if we didn't get to spend as much time as in the past, but more and more people are attending the dinner, Fairfax AGM and now MPIC AGM. I sort of try and meet everyone and then move from table to table, and then quickly from function to function. I saw many people who I wanted to say hello to, but there were usually scrums of people around them, or they were also moving from group to group trying to say hello to everyone. Most of you have my email address, so email me whenever you like. If you post here, I virtually see or read every post. Our dinner was easily the best one yet! - We started the dinner four years ago with just eight people. Francis Chou was our guest that year. - The following two years increased to about 19 and 33 people respectively, with both Sam Mitchell and Francis Chou attending and answering questions. Some fantastic anecdotes and answers were given by them during those two years, that probably saved alot of people a great deal of financial pain. - This year we had about 42 people attend, and our guests were Francis Chou, Sam Mitchell, Wayne Cadwallader. They brought Brian Bradstreet as a surprise guest for everyone. That was a real coup! We were very fortunate to have them all attend. I think there were some surprising things we learned this year from what they all had to say. These are difficult times and very uncertain times going forward. On behalf of the "Corner of Berkshire and Fairfax Board", I'd like to thank Brian, Francis, Sam and Wayne for taking the time out of their busy schedules to come and support our dinner. I'd also like to thank Prem and all of Fairfax for all the support they've always shown us. A special shout-out to Prem's assistant and my dear friend, Jo Ann Butler, who is facing some personal challenges which I know full-well she will beat the hell out of! My trip just wasn't the same without seeing her this year. I wish her the very best. Cheers!

That's her field of legal skill, and besides, she's restricted by law from touching specific matters she dealt with during her incumbency. Would you like your fund's legal advisor to come from the legal arm of a public health department? She's restricted from dealing with specific matters she dealt with, but that does not preclude her from defending other parties under SEC investigation. I think Byrne's point wasn't necessarily her remaining within her legal field, but that Markopoulos handed them a file on Madoff, including Thomsen. They chose not to pursue it. She, along with Cox and a number of other directors, completely missed the largest fraud in U.S. history. Perhaps the legal arm of a public health department could have done better! ;D Cheers!

Does he think that she now has to be unemployed for the rest of her life, or leave her profession? Is there some kind of a junkyard where you put public servants following their public duty? No, but you would think that someone who prosecuted for the SEC for 10 years, would not be going out there to defend the same type of people she used to investigate. Cheers!

Patrick Byrne wrote a terrific column on former SEC director of enforcement Linda Thomsen, who has now gone back to her old law firm which defends those under SEC investigations. Don't you just love how lawyers can so easily move ethical boundaries to fit their needs! Cheers! http://www.deepcapture.com/

New article this morning on Fairfax's investment in Abitibi. I have to go through Fairfax's old annual reports, but this is going to be a very interesting debtor-in-possession case study to watch, and probably the largest Fairfax has ever been involved with relative to its size. The largest newsprint manufacturer in North America, and can it be made profitable again in an industry in decline? Definitely one that the business schools need to watch and see how it unfolds. Cheers! http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/story/GAM.20090417.RABINEXT17ART1939/GIStory/

I think people will fill you guys in shortly, but we had Sam Mitchell, Francis Chou, Brian Bradstreet and Wayne Cadwallader come to our dinner. Brian was the surprise guest and stayed till well past 10:30 pm! Everyone had a fantastic time, and I can't thank the guys who came out and Fairfax enough for everything! I'll fill in some more details when I get back to Vancouver on Thursday night, including pictures from the dinner. Cheers!

No, it still doesn't open. I wonder if it is the hotel's ethernet connection that is somehow not able to connect. Cheers!

Are any of you guys having difficulty getting to Berkshire's website? Every time I try and go there, internet explorer tells me that it cannot display the webpage. Cheers!

No, but I would just bring your proxy card or your brokerage statement just in case. I've never had to present anything. Cheers!

Wells won't have any problems right now. The spreads are just too wide when paying deposits and lending funds. That spread will narrow over time, and then you may see some headwinds. But at the moment, they are at historic margins and banks will do very well this year. Cheers!