Xerxes

^^ I think you can enjoy both the show and the book at the sametime. The show seem to be going slow, so you have plenty of time to at least finish the Trilogy. I would just avoid looking on the internet for articles that makes comparison between show and the book ... PS: There was a typo in my note above, i meant non-chronological (order they were written) and not chronological (in order they happened)

Cheers !

I recommend going non-chronologically in the order he wrote it. I would start with Foundation Trilogy ... The Foundation Trilogy itself was a series of shorts stories cobbled together. And more or less written at the same time as the Caves of Steel and the Naked Sun (the two books of the Robots series). 1950s, 1960s whenever that was. In the 80s though, Asimov was contracted again to write more books and there he started to merge the two universes together: Robots & Empire, and the subsequent works. I think reading the books non-chronologically you get a glimpse of the back story of what Asimov was thinking as he evolved and his ideas evolved. I think that is super fascinating and how he meshed one universe (Robots) series set in the near future (it has earth in it) and depicts the spacers and robots etc. with another universe entirely (Foundation) set in a veryyyyy distant future where there are no robots (i cannot say more than that :-) ). The his last two books written in the 90s are Prelude to Foundation and Forward to Foundation, which are his less popular books. And if i recall one of them is like a prequal to the trilogy. That said, even with those books, you would have needed to have read most of the previously written books. I admit, it is very tough to translate this into a TV Series & happy they are tackling it. i am a pretty liberal fan but i got to say at a few point i lost patience in Episode 1 and 2, when Hollywoodism took over. The one thing to know is that almost (or most) all of the Asimov books had a twist in them that I didn't see coming when I read it for the first time. There was one book, where i kind of figure out the plot twist close to the end (because Asimov wanted me to, I guess), but then there was a twist within a twist that sent me packing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- On a different note, looking forward to see Dune on big screen, i think the first book is very translatable into a movie (or 2 movies as they are doing there), but then even the mighty Dune by the time you get to Book 4, it becomes untranslatable into movie/TVshow. I have read all of six Frank Herbert original work (the first one many times), and i got to say i understood nothing when i read Book 4. Dune is going to be awesome. ---------------------------------- EDIT: minor typo; i meant non-chronological order

Same here, that giant Apple cash hoard is better spent to have a sticky Apple services (like this type of TV show) than buybacks. I was never an Apple subs but I am now. I have read the Foundation trilogy three times, and have read the entire Foundation-Robots-Empire arc twice. The Foundation is NOT easily made into a TV show given that it spans over hundreds of years, so at time i got annoyed by some scenes and force interaction in Episode 1 and 2. What I found very interesting is that some characters from later books that Asimov wrote in the 90s (prelude to Foundation etc.) are shown in Episode 1 and 2, that were NOT in the original Foundation trilogy written in the 60s. That shows AppleTV+ creative team is thinking big and looks like they are looking at 80-episodes show covering Foundation-Robots-Empire into one Arc.

Not exactly FFH news anymore (and from late summer): Government in Ireland is liquidating its last equity stake (13.9%) at the Bank of Ireland. Looks like FFH and Wilbur Ross's outfit cash infusion 10+ years prevented the collapse of that entity and in some ways contributed to the stability of the Irish economy. So some good came out of it. Hoping to see the same framework for Greece in a not to distance future.

Rest in peace Not to be disrespectful and to post this question in this thread, but would his stake in Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE) be bought by Berkshire Hathaway. I imagine that is one way for his Foundation to get the needed liquidity.

Agreed on the first & second paragraph, but then again, when he bought it, it was 2 bets: (1) a bet with a leap of faith that the central bank action will be swift and there would a vaccine (though efficacy level completely unknown), therefore the BV - the anchor - which was then in the eye storm was depressed and (2) FFH operations would recover and do better thereafter. His thought process permeated the conference calls when he talked about the historical bounce back whenever that kind of 1-100 year event took place. Today, the "recovered"-BV is normalized, so buying today, you are no longer making a bet with a leap of faith that the central bank action will be swift and there would a vaccine, as that is already in the bag. So what remains is an isolated bet on the FFH itself and its operations. So the discount is much narrower today when compared to the mid-2020, when you were being paid by the market an "additional discount" to take a macro* leap of faith. That is kind of how i see it, sorry if i am not explaining it very well. *perhaps we can say that after a decade of being off on deflation/short hedges, Prem got this particular macro call 100% right, as the risk/reward were heavily tilted in his favor. The wrinkle however is that FFH, the company, did not benefit from that macro call, he personally did + those of us who chose to put in additional fund.

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Perhaps cheaper or as undervalued today based on the BV metrics. It is just that he bought it at "distress" level when BV (ie. the anchor of the relative valuation) was artificially depressed. Today, the BV does not represent a distress value as its related ingredients have recovered. So it seems to me that it was definitely cheaper from absolute AND relative point of view when he bought it, once you 'normalize' that April-July 2020 BV to remove the impact of meteor hitting the economy.

Is Inbetween a remake of Breaking Bad or vice versa. I dont think we have that in Canada.

CEO video: Maximizing shareholder and stakeholder value at Raytheon | EY - Global

The Fall list is heavy. Lots of work is needed to get through this: 10 Rings (Marvel movie) -- done Sopranos prequel 007 Dune Foundation Trilogy Eternal (Marvel movie) Spiderman multiverse (Marvel movie) Dexter Narcos Mexico Season 3 Mandalorian (no clue on release date) Billions (part 2 of the last season ?) Succession (new season ?) Might be missing

The Keg has been more or less busy this summer. Maybe not to full full capacity but seemed busy. Harvey's is always busy as a take out joint. It seemed busy in Montreal even at the depth of the pandemic with its drive-through re-assuring its customer with the same tasty burgers. Tim Hortons, on the other hand, (not Watsa property but a Ackman property) except for drive-through lost a good chunk of its business. Used to be a hang out place for a more senior customer base.

^^ One could argue that they already "used up" that $129 million inflow fund to more or less fully fund the $105 million tender offer buyback from August. Only difference is that it was done in reverse orders: do the tender offer first at very attractive low P/BV and then get the funding for it in Sept from OMERS valuing BIA airport like a fully ripe peach.

I should say that i had invested all of Alibaba divestment dollars when i sold in Spring '21 into Atlas. There was a time when I dreaded anything remotely related to the Baltic Index, but somehow it feels clearer now.

she rocks ! (for now)

Interestingly, I am more than half way through the book "Greatest Trade" that covers Paulson's shorts in 07-09. Say what you will, many people saw the pending doom as well in real-estate, but either were too early, botched the trade or didn't swing for the fences. He was smart enough to nail the shorts in 08-09 and bet big, but not smart enough to see the rise of mega-techs and underperformed in the subsequent decade. it goes to shows how differently investors are wired for different occasions. Sometimes the best of them need to sit tight for years, until they see something that make sense for them, while the peanut gallery roll their eyes and opine. Paulson' comment on gold intrigues me. Bloomberg Wealth interview with Paulson (the full interview) should be posted in the next few days.

Only if Buffett was weird like that (or more often), we could catch BRK at substantial discount now and then. Last time he was weird was in 1999-2000 (before I was following any of this) and he was weird again in 2020. Weird defined as being against the whatever is common wisdom at the time for whatever reason.

I don’t think we will see any buyback (ala FIH tender offer). Not that they cannot do it but with the framework of having certain net cash on balance sheet that means that they cannot borrow the fund to do a large buyback. also buyback (a large one) will re-lever the company as it shrinks the equity base. I think large buybacks will come eventually but will be through excess free cash flow and not at the expense of re-levering the business. I think this clear through *signalling* they have done. The comment about Teledyne few years ago was just Prem looking ahead into the next decade as the business moves from an asset gatherer machine into working value per share. He sent the wrong signal as he didn’t put timetable on it. But I truly believe he means going there. A business that has been sending frequent *signals* about large buyback has been IAC, that has made frequent scripted comment on CNBC, earning calls etc that they had bought half of their shares post-quad split 10 years ago. And surprise surprise the post-Vimeo spin news flow is close to zero with drips, which to me it says they are content with their share price dropping. Who knows maybe they ll buy back ANGI.

fair enough. I am watching this show called “what if” on Disney+. Sometimes it is worth looking at that.

To summarize, (as I see it) we are betting that the business is moving from “empire-building mode” to “harvesting mode” and later as earnings (real earning not paper earning) builds up in some years “to shrink the equity base mode”. We are very much done with the “empire building cycle” stage in the life cycle. There was an intermission (short thesis gone wrong) between that an the next stage, but that is largely over as well. The chairman was obviaouly aware of all the levers he had available to pull when he made the $130 million bet.

Viking. out of curiosity I recall you had said that in 2013 you made a big bet on Apple (after FFH got into BB) and did really well. did you ever back-calculated your %, say today, had you held whatever you had in Apple and completely untouched.

Viking you will probably find this interesting. There is a podcast called YAVB with an episodes on lumber. Interestingly there are lots of references to Paul Rivett and Resolute. you will probably enjoy it Was listening to it on and off while on a flight to Vancouver (so far an interesting city).

Cheers I had to google YDRC