wisowis
-
Posts
241 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by wisowis
-
-
14 minutes ago, Viking said:
6.) Other (revenue-expenses) - non-insurance subsidiaries:
- Recipe, Dexterra, AGT, Grivalia Hospitality, Boat Rocker, Farmers Edge etc.
- This combination of businesses earned $46 million in 2023.
- I expect earnings to be better in 2024, coming in at $150 million
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!
-
I enjoy playing 3-5 minute blitz (anything longer and I regret my mistakes too much!).
I also enjoy watching certain chess content, personal favourite is GM Daniel Naroditsky...both educational and entertaining. (Check him out on youtube!)
-
NBLY.TO and a bit of PLC.TO
-
8 hours ago, ValueMaven said:
Has anyone looked at the JNJ-KVUE swap? It's an interesting one.
You buy 99 shares of JNJ and swap it into KVUE at a meaningful discount. It's about a 17% return in 2 weeks time.
If you buy 100 shares you want be guaranteed a full swap, and if you buy 99 shares and don't allocate the full 99 shares, then you will lose out as well. KVUE also has sold off and seems cheap to me given its business and moat. Hedge Funds cant do this (99 share issue) and most retail is unaware of the transaction.
Interesting idea, but how do you get 17%? As of Friday, JNJ shares closed at $173.85, KVUE closed at $23.72. Indicative ratio (as of Friday) was 7.9334x (per https://www.envisionreports.com/jnjseparation/2023/JNJSeparationaug11/index.html?voting=true).
That gives me an 8.2% return, unless I am missing something?
-
Bought a bit more Dream
-
-
Ticker Name Weighting (%) RPP Pension-ETFs 12.6 TSE:VUN Vanguard US Total Market Index ETF 12.4 NYSE:BRK.B Berkshire Hathaway Inc Class B 12.2 TSE:CSU Constellation Software Inc. 8.3 TSE:PSA Purpose High Interest Savings ETF 7.8 TSE:HSAV Horizons Cash Maximizer ETF 6.9 TSE:BN Brookfield Corp 3.5 TSE:DRM DREAM Unlimited Corp 3.3 TSE:XEF iShares Core MSCI EAFE IMI Index ETF 2.9 TSE:GFL GFL Environmental Inc 2.2 TSE:FFH Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd Sub Voting 2.1 TSE:ELF E-L Financial Corp Ltd 2.1 TSE:HSUV.U Horizons USD Cash Maximizer ETF 1.9 TSE:ATD Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc 1.9 TSE:ZRE BMO Equal Weight REITs Index ETF 1.7 TSE:XIC iShares Core S&P/TSX Capped Composite Index ETF 1.6 TSE:SJ Stella-Jones Inc 1.5 CVE:QIS Quorum Information Technologies Inc 1.4 TSE:WCN Waste Connections Inc 1.3 TSE:SU Suncor Energy Inc 1.2 NYSE:BERY Berry Global Group Inc 1.2 TSE:XEC iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets IMI Index ETF 1.1 TSE:TD Toronto-Dominion Bank 1 GOOG Alphabet Inc Class C 1 TSE:GIB.A CGI Inc 0.9 TSE:BAM BROOKFIELD ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD 0.9 Cash Cash 0.8 TSE:HCG Home Capital Group Inc 0.8 TPB Turning Point Brands Inc 0.7 TSE:TCN Tricon Residential Inc 0.6 META Meta Platforms Inc 0.6 TSE:ZEO BMO EQUAL WEIGHT OIL & GAS INDEX ETF 0.5 TSE:PIPE Pipestone Energy Corp 0.5 BABA Alibaba Group Holding Ltd - ADR 0.2 CVE:LMN Lumine Group Inc 0.1 CVE:RX Biosyent Inc 0.1 -
Reacher was great, also binged it this weekend.
-
Several people mentioning they bought on Monday to tender...
But doesn't it take the trade 2 days to settle, then an additional 2-3 business days for the broker's deadline to perform the corporate action? At least that's how I thought it works in Canada...
-
Added to TPB and SJ.TO
-
-
Just to follow-up on my previous post about the Artis prefs, the option to convert to an open-end trust was approved at the latest shareholder meeting. And in the Q1 earnings call, Samir brings up the redemption of the prefs:
QuoteJenny Ma
Speaking of capital allocation, just wondering what your thoughts were on the preferred piece of the capital stack. I know you've been sort of buying back a little bit at a time. Are there any limitations with regards to what you do with that piece? And how do you think about it over the longer term?
Samir Manji
Jenny, the 3 classes of prefs that we have, as you know, have varying maturity dates going into 2022 and 2023, insofar as a reset dates that provide Artis on those reset dates with the option if we so choose to redeem and extinguish the respective class of prefs. And so at this point, we have been active, as you've noted, in a modest -- in a very modest way with respect to the prefs. And with respect to any longer-term decisions or medium-term decisions for 2022 and 2023, we have not made any final determinations, but we will explore and evaluate that as we keep going. I would also say in the spirit of transparency that those that understand some of the technical details with respect to one of the areas we have raised and have sought unitholder approval for at the upcoming annual general and special meeting on May '21, is to provide the Board with the flexibility as time passes to move from a closed-end structure to an open-ended structure. And that exercise, if it was something that unitholders approve and the Board then has that flexibility around if the Board was to exercise that conversion, likely with it would come the redemption certainly of some of the -- 2, if not all 3, of the classes of press [sic] that we have outstanding at those reset dates in 2022 and 2023.
-
I think Warren let it slip before Charlie:
QuoteWarren Buffett
Well, it's too large to do certain things, that's for sure. I mean it's not -- we can't spend our time looking for $100 million acquisitions. But we have a wonderful company in Fort Worth, and we had a marvelous man running it and he died recently. But he ran it -- he sold it to me 15 years ago, and he just basically ran it. And I couldn't find my way to the company.
We've got this terrific company that makes recreational vehicles in Elkhart -- based in Elkhart, Indiana. And we bought it 15 years ago. I've never been there. Maybe there's some guy in the closet just making up numbers to send to me every month. But I feel I understand the business pretty well, but I've never seen it. And the fellow that runs it, he likes running it, and he likes me keeping my nose out of it. And he'll let Greg in a little more than he'll let me.
But it's -- we've got a system that will work with wonderful businesses and wonderful managers. And it's up to us to find them, but it's also us (sic) to nurture them when we find them.
And if you get somebody like Paul Andrews who ran TTI and who build it from nothing, absolutely nothing, nobody ever heard of him. And the earnings have octupled during the period that he ran it for us. And he was happy. Employees were happy. He was a wonderful man. We were happy.
And I would call him at the end of the year and I'd say, "Paul, this place is -- you're shooting the lights out everything, and you should take a raise." And he said -- or bonus. He'd say, "Well, we'll talk about that next year, Warren." I mean he just loved -- he loved the business. I love Berkshire. He loved the business.
And I wasn't going to add anything by having him do a lot of bunch of reports about how much he's using in a way of carbon or anything. It just -- it's ridiculous to think of a guy like Paul Andrews behaving in an antisocial matter or anything of the sort. And we'd love to have more of those.
And obviously as we get bigger, they get harder to buy, but we've got a number in the place. And I don't think we bought our last one over time, but I certainly don't see anything in the near future at all.
But we're intensifying our interest a little bit in the ones we have by repurchasing shares. So our shareholders own more of those companies every year while we're -- assuming we're repurchasing shares, which is price-sensitive. Charlie?
Charles Munger
Yes, I don't think we're getting too big to manage. Because we're different from practically every other big corporation in the United States in that we are so excessively decentralized. We have decentralized so much and we have so much authority in the subsidiaries that we can keep doing it for a long, long time as long as it keeps working. And I would say so far that our decentralization has caused more benefits than defects, but nobody seems to copy us.
Warren Buffett
Well, that's absolutely true, but I would say this decentralization won't work unless you have the right kind of culture accompanying it.
Charles Munger
Yes, but we do.
Warren Buffett
Yes, we do, but it's dependent on us. I mean...
Charles Munger
Greg will keep the culture.
-
Here is gfp's ghost post:
On 4/15/2021 at 5:47 PM, gfp said:It is possible that Warren decided to try an "Accelerated Share Repurchase" plan, like Apple has done, to augment his existing direct repurchase activity. I'm not an expert on these plans, but Apple breaks them out as a separate component of its return of capital activities.
Berkshire would do a deal with an Investment Bank, and the investment bank would have to deliver those shares at the agreed upon forward price. It is then on the IB to find the shares / hedge their risk and make a profit on the deal. If Berkshire tried one of these forward purchase contracts with an IB, and it covered both classes of shares (or just the A), it could be responsible for the elevated trading volume in the A-shares.
I have no idea. But I highly doubt the volume is due to someone other than Berkshire trying to get votes.
-
I saw this interesting thread on twitter that the Artis preferreds will likely need to be redeemed because of their (desired) switch from a closed-end to an open-end trust:
-
Picked up some Fortis
-
Added to CHTR and WCN
-
Seriously though, now that the feeding frenzy has spread to so many different heavily shorted names, I'm a bit nervous not knowing what the exposure is. It's not out of the realm of possibility that Fairfax is short one of these names that's exploded over the last week.
Below is from the last conference call in October. If FFH has short exposure after saying this...
Michael BeallPrem, could you give us a little more color on this short equity exposure? Exactly what are we short and the notional or size relative to our portfolio?
So it's just the strategy in general. That is a pretty big number. And I don't mean to -- Monday morning or Friday morning quarterback because the third quarter was a strong one, but $168 million in losses on short equity exposure, I think, deserves a little more explanation.
V. Watsa
So Michael, we don't talk about individual names, as you know, until we've either sold them or covered them. And on the shorts, let me assure you that it's over. This is just a remnant and unfortunately, as you pointed out, has gone up. And -- but not too long in the future, we'd be out of it. It's all mark-to-market, of course. So you see it.
And we reduced it quite significantly in the third quarter. And relatively soon, I just don't want to fix a time, but relatively soon, that will be gone. And then we've said publicly, we will not short the TSE and not short the indices. Meaning, the S & Poor's or any of them. So we will not do that, and we won't short companies at all, ever. And so rest assured, there'll be no more of those.
Michael Beall
Okay. So exactly, broadly, where are we short? You just said we don't short individual companies, and we don't short the TSE, or I guess the S&P.
So I still don't understand what this hedge is designed -- what it's about?
V. Watsa
Yes. So Michael, basically what it was, was a position that we've had in the past. So it's not a new short. It's a position -- an individual position that we've had in the past that we've covered, and covered, and covered, and this is the last remnants of it.
-
Bought more BRK and BERY
-
Bought some ATD.B
-
AWS and BlackBerry Join Forces to Accelerate Innovation with New Intelligent Vehicle Data Platform
-
Added to QIS.V
In the past week:
Added to NVU.UN, CSU.TO
Initiated BYD.TO, DRM.TO
Index Inclusion Candidates
in General Discussion
Posted
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).