Nelson

Re: the college vs. non college debate: I remember talking with a teacher in high school about college. This was a guy who went back to school and got his teaching credentials when he was 35 or so. He was a chef in the meantime along with something else I don't remember. He told me that when taking the advice of adults about potential career paths you have to figure out the perspective of the person giving the advice. Think about advice coming from the average teacher. They went from school, to more school, and then back to school. Most teachers haven't spent a meaningful amount of time away from school. Thus, they're going to suggest a student goes to college. Going to college worked out pretty well for them. This teacher liked to suggest the apprenticeship program. But again, that was because he apprenticed to be a chef and it worked out well for him. The fact is if you went to university and are currently using your degree directly, I can just about guarantee you're pro-college. The folks who either didn't go or are now in something completely unrelated tend to be anti-school. The personal bias from both camps makes it hard to think whether both have really thought it through, or are assuming their personal situation applies to everyone. (I'm anti-college FWIW. I didn't go and I know I'm doing better than 90% of my high school class, at least financially)

Related question -- sorry in advance for hijacking the thread. Does anyone have any experience throwing out sucker ask prices hoping they'll get picked up? I've done it before with bids for stocks that have no liquidity with a modest amount of success. What about throwing out a sucker ask price that's 5-10% above the last ask and hoping some sucker makes a market order instead of a limit order. Has anyone ever successfully done this or am I out to lunch?

In my opinion, Dundee should be the poster child for the abolition of dual class share structures. Take a look at the latest management information circular & note carefully the substantial amounts paid to directors & management to put together such a complicated & poorly performing menagerie of assets. No way would this be trading at 25% of a already much reduced net asset value if there were no multi voting shares.... http://dundeecorp.com/pdf/2015-DC-Circular-FINAL.pdf Yeah, I'll admit there are issues there. There are a whole bunch of issues. The latest is the deal with the Series 4 preferred shares. Potato wrote about it here http://www.holypotato.net/?p=1392 but here's the gist of it. There was a maturity coming up in June, 2016 for the Series 4 prefs. Management pretty much scoffed at it and all but told investors they'd be converting them to a new series of prefs that doesn't come due until 2019. Not only that, but it turns out once you convert to the new Series 5 preferred you'll forfeit any fractional shares you might have gotten from the conversion. I guess they kind of make up for that with a consent fee ($11 for every 100 shares I believe, might be wrong), but still. The whole thing smells a little. Getting back to the common, the fact is you're not picking up assets at 30% of NAV if there aren't some problems. I thought 50% below NAV was a nice discount and then oil blew up. If it wasn't already a big position I'd pick up more, but I tend to get into trouble when I average down more than once. As for the dual voting shares, I agree there are issues when a controlling family can basically do whatever they want. There's no way an activist investor is going to go in and shake things up. If they can't threaten to get the votes to change things, they have no power. But at the same time, the Goodman family owns 11 million out of the 58 million outstanding shares. Ned owns 6 million and the 4 boys own 5 million. Only 3.something million are the multiple voting shares. These guys want the share price to go up just as much as I do.

I've been long this one since about $11. I averaged down at $8 and then I bought the Series 3 (DC.PR.D) preferreds. Overall, it's a relatively large position, about 5% of my portfolio. I view it as a typical Ben Graham cigar butt, especially at today's price. I'm getting energy and mining assets which are already beaten-up for 30 cents on the dollar. Even if the valuation is aggressive, the margin of safety here is huge. Intothebreach mentioned one potential catalyst, which is the company getting back into the wealth management business again in a big way. The other is its real estate division. They have joint ventures to develop a casino on Vancouver's waterfront, along with resorts in Cuba and a big development surrounding the new Olympic site in South Korea. Remember, these guys have history in creating value in real estate through Dundee REIT which was eventually spun off into the Dream family of REITs. Francis Chou owns a bunch of Dundee too, and at higher prices as well. I'm content to hold and collect my ~10% dividend on the preferred. I see a very small chance the whole company goes to zero.

This thread is great for people looking for reading ideas. My library is going to be busy finding me books over the next few months. Thanks guys. I just finished Jimmy, the autobiography of Jim Pattison, one of Canada's richest men. He's an interesting character. It's lacking in a few areas, partially because he wrote it in 1987 and hasn't updated it since. But the stories of when he first started building his empire in the 1970s are quite interesting. I'd recommend it for anyone who's interested in conglomerates.

I wish we had stuff like Project FI and Cricket in Canada. Our wireless carriers are starting to get cheaper, but we're still pretty expensive. I'm at $49 per month with Koodo, the discount arm of Telus. That get me unlimited minutes, unlimited texts, and 1GB of data. I used to be at 750 minutes/750MB for $44, but I found myself getting too close to minute and data limits. The $5 extra per month is just gravy. I'll probably switch to another Telus-owned company called Public Mobile at some point. I can get unlimited province-wide minutes (meaning unlimited calls in my home province from any Canadian number, I'd have to pay a roaming fee or buy an add-on if I traveled), unlimited texting and 4GB of data over three months for something like $35/month. I'm stuck on Koodo for at least the next three months, since I just bought the phone. If I don't stay three months I have to give back the freebie $100 Walmart gift card I got for switching.