Xerxes

But then they held on the other old-economy names ... I think that is one of the reason why institutional investors stay away from FFH, unless there is a huge margin of safety (i.e. mean reversion). Not because they don't believe Prem Watsa's ability but just that they cannot wrap their heads around what framework Prem Watsa is using to decide when to sell or buy. Think of endless discussion in this very forum about BB and resolute. Institutional investors dont have that problem with say Brookfield. The BAM folks are showing themselves savvy investors using clear framework and speaking clear language that the investor base understand. That framework allows institutional investors to feel comfortable with BAM or BX and the like. Even if it is all optics or smoke and mirror. The investor base feel comfortable that at least they know where they stand (even if they are not in the stock). With Berkshire and Fairfax, the investor would be literally outsourcing all that to the founder-CEO-operator and taking a leap of faith.

Cheers Perhaps we will see each other in Toronto for the AGM. Whether the discount narrows or not, I'll buy you a drink for all the work you have done. The only difference I would say between CDS and Digit is that the former was cold hard cash that got realized. Digit will likely be unrealized gain for a long time even after its IPO. If Prem sells a portion of Digit, I would really question why Digit (a fast growing tech) deserves a trim and not Resolute (a lumbering sawmill) .

I bought the book from a bookstore when i was in BC. Next step: to read it.

Thanks. That was very informative !!

in case, they were not posted before.

Thanks for the good laugh on a otherwise grey Tuesday morning where i live

Short-med term trading aside (which pros and cons have been well documented here in the thread), for those in it in the long term, it will come down to one thing only: The founder-operator-CEO ability to morph himself/herself from empire-building into being laser focus on growing value per share by shrinking the capital base. Some founder-operator-CEO cannot, some founder-operator-CEO do not want to. Who can blame them. Even the mighty Buffett for better of last decade, had more fun playing the waiting game to snatch a prize than doing the boring-boring obvious thing of buying its own shares. That is why the case study of Teledyne is so interesting, where the CEO just flipped a switch purely based on what made sense going forward. ------------------------------------------------------ Prem bought 482,600 shares ($149 million) in 2020 at an average of $308 USD per share. Those are now worth $191 million (barely 28% for 1 year or so). He said his timeframe is 3-5 years on conference call. When he made bet in June 2020, it was a macro bet and it was not a bet on himself (going forward it will be on himself). Same as those buying today who are Seeking Alpha. My sense is that he has some focus on the growing value per share if he made the trade of that size. ------------------------------------------------------ On Resolute and BB, i hope he knows something we don't about these two names, otherwise the optics of not-unloading aint pretty.

I meant a large institutional buyer buying FIH through a private placement from FFH, at a price that is largely above the $10 carry and perhaps also the market value, given that the large buyer would need liquidity and spot price wont do it. That new "mark" will help lift the rest of FFH holding as its BV re-adjust. FFH owners will benefit with some of that intrinsic now in the books. FIH holder will benefit as the ownership will broaden out, albeit not a FIH BV. That means no new equity issued for FIH below book value. Just shares exchanging hands directly between FFH and that buyer. The same way Softbank sold a big portion of Alibaba to 3-party buyer (Singapore sovereign fund if i recall) without disrupting the float as a significant owner of the equity. Of course if FIH traded at a premium, there would be direct issuance of shares, and broadening will happen like that. ----------------------------- bottom line: (1) persistent FIH BV means more FIH buyback; more performance fee to FFH; net results: more % FFH ownership (this was SJ's initial point) (2) broadening the FIH investor base, thus less % FFH ownership: (i) issue new FIH shares for new investors. Net result: more cash coming into FIH for investment. [out of the question given the deep discount] (ii) direct placement to an interested third-party. Net result: Cash going to FFH but no cash going to FIH. The BV of FFH adjusted upward from its current carry of $10 (circa 2016). <=this is my point

Reputational risk. Going back to my comment that there must be a part of this scheme, where Prem is thinking "i want FIH to be must-own asset when investors want exposure to India like BEP is a must own asset in the renewable world, and therefore i want to have the broadest set of investor and not keep increasing FFH% own stake" This means lower %FFH ownership of FIH overtime (not more) and more broad institutional investment, but then again as pointed by others direct listing of the subs (and competing platform i.e. Brookfield) would take that uniqueness away from FIH for large institutional investors.

Prem has been more wrong then right in the past 10 years, perhaps, he would be wrong here as well (if he truly wishes to have a large discount) and the FIH discount does not persist, to the benefit of FIH direct holder and to the detriment of FFH's performance fee. but joking aside, is it logical to think only through the KPI of FFH% ownership ? Isn't there a part of this scheme, where Prem is thinking "i want FIH to be must own asset when investor want exposure to India like BEP is a must own asset in the renewable word, and therefore i want to have the broadest set of investor and not keep increasing FFH% own stake" Also earlier above it was pointed how FIH is carried on the FFH's book for $10 with market being at $13 and FIH BV being at $20. Is it more advantageous for FFH and Prem to: (1) have a large discount, to have an incentive to have FIH buybacks such that BV moves up, and FFH gets more % ownership as a result or (2) perhaps monetize a bit of its FIH holding to a third-party, and get a new "mark" closer to BV of $15-20, thereby lifting its carry from $10 to a higher number, thereby helping pushing FFH's BV close to intrinsic value. Why would a third party want to buy a piece of FIH from Prem when they can buy it cheaper on the market. Liquidity perhaps ...

Thank you VM

^^ 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.

For what is worth BlackBerry now a security software company — CEO explains the new vision (cnbc.com)

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.