wisowis

I don't think an index add will provide the huge opportunity to sell that you think it will, my 2 cents at least. Personally, it will be difficult to sell because all my shares are in a taxable account with a low-cost basis, and I am in my prime earning years. It would have to be some combination of serious multiple expansion, a return to the dark ages of Fairfax that were checkered by poor capital allocation decisions, and/or a generational buying opportunity in...something else. Biggest benefit from a December 2024 index add would be that the Fairfax 2025 thread won't be filled with posts speculating about index inclusion.

Added to RTO, SCR.to, and HTL.to merger arb this week

Frontera to Amend Substantial Issuer Bid to Remove the Preferential Acceptance of Odd Lots https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/frontera-to-amend-substantial-issuer-bid-to-remove-the-preferential-acceptance-of-odd-lots-302259270.html

Thanks for your candor. Hope you don't mind if I press a bit... I thought I recalled you saying that atento was at your maximum position size. You've now stated the size of that position, and it seems FFH is now ~3x larger than your previous maximum position size (marking to market). Could you tell us what changed in your process? Or is it that FFH is such a high-conviction idea that you've over-ridden your rule? And to Parsad's point; some people sure are a lot braver than I could ever be. I follow closely with his "singles and doubles" investment philosophy. My PA is now the result of many years of work, but not (yet) comfortable enough to retire on. I suspect many of those that concentrate either have PA's smaller (worth it take the risk since you haven't spent that much time accumulating) or larger (not as painful when you don't need the money) than me. Or simply braver

Atento

You're all saying "Never quite understood tremendous aversion to large position sizes" and "I never understood the concept of 'positioning'." ...meanwhile, the guy saying he has 40+% of his portfolio in Fairfax had his (previously) largest equity position go to zero last year. The world is an unpredictable place, and diversification is protection against that unpredictability, not just protection against an investor's knowledge (or lack thereof) about a business. The more concentrated you are, the lower the probability events that you need to consider...because any sequence multiplied by 0 is 0. If you have your entire portfolio in FFH, I hope (for instance) that you have modeled what would have happened in the depths of the COVID crisis, when FFH was seriously strained, if there had been a super-cat event and they had TRS swaps in their portfolio where they needed to post additional collateral at the same time. While I do hold a significant amount of Fairfax, I, personally, am not concentrated enough to care about the very, very low probability events.

Biggest new position this year was RCM, but already sold out on the takeover deal. New positions in FRPH, RTO, XPEL, BUR. All approx. equal size but relatively small to the overall size of the portfolio. Thanks to those on this board that contributed on these ideas. Other positions in AFN.TO and HTL.TO that I predict will be gone by end of the year. Largest existing position that I've added to is FFH. Haven't added or subtracted from the other big rigs in my portfolio (BRK, CSU, BN).

Sold RCM

Writeup on "yet another value blog" about the RCM situation in case anyone is interested https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/a-brewing-bidding-war-rcm

Looks like we have some activist involvement: $RTO +6.8% [Activist investor Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management LP has amassed a significant stake in UK-based pest-control company Rentokil Initial — Bloomberg] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-11/peltz-s-trian-amasses-top-10-stake-in-terminix-owner-rentokil

PLC.TO announced being taken private at a 62% premium I bought some RCM last week, interesting special situation. RTO and XPEL in the last several weeks as well.

Strathcona is 90.8% owned by Waterous funds. TSX60 is a float-adjusted index. If you adjust Strathcona's market cap excluding shares owned by Waterous, it has only a float-adjusted market cap of $575 million. Certainly that would be way too small for the TSX60 (notwithstanding the fact that, even if they were large enough, Energy already comprises 17% of the index (second largest component) and they would unlikely be looking to make it more heavily weighted towards Energy).

Thanks for the post, Viking. Question: Why will earnings from this bucket more than triple?

It happens in Canada...those that come to mind are Sandpiper with Artis REIT, George Armoyan with Slate Office REIT, Rai Sahi with a whole bunch of them over the years.

Merry Christmas everyone!