Saluki

According to GuruFocus, Prem has sold out his IPI shares at about $4.60. Given that he purchased at $1.20 less than a year ago, it seems like a great score. Where did this info come from though? He won't have to file his 13f for a couple of months, so what filing are they getting their info from? https://www.gurufocus.com/news/693037/prem-watsa-cashes-in-on-intrepid-potash I'm up about 70% on this (albeit a very small position for me) but I think it's still got room to move up, so I'm holding for now. The water sales should hit $30+ million with 90%+ margins so even at a 10X multiple, it should be worth at least $300mm for the water part of the business. , and the potash operations are a bonus. There are some nice NOLs in there, and it's impossible to kill this company because it's the low cost potash producer. Canada produces more than 30% of the worlds potash and the 2 big companies in Canada sell it worldwide through a government sponsored cartel. The Canadian producers, have to pay a royalty to the provinces and ship it to the US. The price they produce it at is a blended rate of their costs from producing through conventional mining and solution mining (pumping water in, taking out the brine and drying it out) IPI doesn't do conventional mining any more and only uses solution mining, but whereas the Canadians have to dry out the brine by boiling off the water using natural gas, IPI's mines are in the Utah and New Mexico desert, so they just throw it on the floor and let the sun do the evaporation for free. Shipping is an issue too. Potash prices fell off a cliff (from ~$900 a ton to ~$180) so it's less likely that you'll get people from Russia shipping there stuff halfway across the world to compete with you on price. The prices fell because of fracking (you can make an imperfect substitute for potash using natural gas to make ammonia then ammonia to make fertilizer). Although some crops do okay with other fertilizers, some crops like Corn and lots of fruit need potash because of the potassium, so it will always be around no matter how cheap natural gas is. Potash prices are over $200 now consistently, and since no one can make potash cheaper than IPI, I feel like this is the cockroach that can survive anything. Anyone have any thoughts on this one?

at $500mm, it looks like its now their second biggest equity position (a few million behind Blackberry). I think the Sokol presentation at the investing presentation the day before the Fairfax annual event was very informative and impressive. They've announced a willingness to invest more in infrastructure like ports (Vancouver, I believe) which seems more promising that the shipping part. As far as the shipping goes, with their recent merger and newer fleet I think it bodes well if the industry is consolidating. After the Hanjin fiasco I think people will be more likely to look towards well financed operations with newer fleets (lower fuel costs, and no one was eager to lend money to Hanjin when the collateral they had was a fleet of rust buckets). So the growth prospects look good over the next few years if we avoid a trade war and global recession.

Klarman's Margin of Safety is a really well-written book. The price is outrageous, but you can borrow it from the library. Running Money by Andy Kessler FIASCO by Frank Portnoy Boomerang by Michael Lewis are all very entertaining

The Snowball: Warren Buffett by Alice Schroeder A Curious Discovery by John Hendricks The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green by Janet Wallach The Match King: Ivar Kreuger by Frank Partnoy (author of FIASCO, a Munger recommendation) Ponzi by Donald Dunn

Sometimes I do a "deep dive" into an industry and read several books on it (I've read about 15 on the oil industry, including a couple of textbooks). I've read two books so far on the candy industry, this is the better of the two and a really fun read. I read "The Chocolate Wars", written by one of the Cadbury heirs first. It was an interesting story about the birth of the Chocolate industry, but focused mostly on England and the Cabdbury and Rowntree families. And the strange link between the early chocolatiers and religion (most of the big names in chocolate, except for Mars, were deeply religious and some saw chocolate drinks as a way to keep people from drinking alcohol). Emperors of Chocolate focuses mostly on Hershey (a wonderful man who donated his fortune to the orphanage) and the fascinating and secretive Mars clan. How secretive is the Mars clan? When the founder, Forrest Mars Sr died, not only did they not tell people about it, when reporters called the headquarters, they wouldn't even confirm that he had ever worked there. There are no great business insights in this book, but it is remarkably well researched and well written. I thought I would gain some insight into Berkshire's purchase of See's candy by reading up on the chocolate industry, but it's not that kind of book. Still, very interesting and a short read.

I re-read these every couple of years. I also periodically reread Margin of Safety by Klarman, Poor Charlie's Almanack and (has nothing to do with investing) Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

I think if you had Homo Deus on it's own, you would like it. It's just that this book is so good, the other suffers by comparison. I read more than 100 books a year and Sapiens is one of the few books I've bothered to read twice.

I'm almost finished with this book too. It's a really interesting read. Not saying the book's subject is a good or bad person either, but the development of this segment of the commodiities market, which is very opaque, is very interesting.