Jump to content

drog

Member
  • Posts

    8
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by drog

  1. The company just confirmed to me that Ben Watsa's comp will be the same as the other non-management directors, i.e. retainer of $75,000 per year plus $500,000 of shares vesting 10% per year. I think at a minimum they should waive the shares in this instance. In Ben's shoes I think the right thing to do would be to refuse all comp, accepting only travel and other expenses. Berkshire pays it's directors $900 per meeting attended in person and $300 by phone - with no options and no D&O insurance.Curious what other people think.
  2. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1325824120101013
  3. The underlying portfolios (in UNC & EVT) are very international so there is actually considerable foriegn currency exposure.
  4. I'm hoping there may be other Canadians on this board who held the Nasdaq listed ADS shares of Thomson Reuters PLC during the company's unification in late 2009. We were not properly notified of this event by our custodian RBC Dexia. As a result, the substantial gain we had on this investment was realized. Is there anyone out there in the same position? Conversely, is there anyone out there who was properly notified of this event by their custodian/bank/broker, and therefore able to make the tax election to defer the capital gain? Thanks for your help!
  5. Brian is one of those guys who seems to know everything about everything. I love it that his model prices are often right to the penny - I mean he must know alot to make predictions to the penny, right? You know what they say - often wrong but never in doubt.
  6. $10.59 at RBC Dexia, the largest custodian in Canada.
  7. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/acdc7fca-bcc1-11de-a7ec-00144feab49a.html
  8. At $103,400 per Class A share, the valuation is 1.4 times the June 30, 2009 book value. In recent years, the stock has tended to gravitate toward 1.5 times book value – while trading in a wide band around that level. Some would have us believe that this makes Berkshire overvalued. In contrast, I believe that book value understates the intrinsic value of Berkshire since the company has many terrific operating businesses that were purchased a long time ago. Buffett’s valuation methodology is to separate the business into two parts, insurance and other. He values the insurance business at a level equal to the value of the cash and investments that it holds (currently $83,530 per share). For the operating businesses, he uses an unspecified multiple of pre-tax operating earnings (excluding investment income). For the 12 months ended June 30, 2009, pre-tax earnings were $3,070 per share. This means that the market is applying a 6.5 times multiple to these operations, which is certainly too low (103,400 less 83,530 divided by 3,070). A level between 10 and 13 times is probably appropriate given the high quality and unlevered nature of the select group of businesses – with even higher multiples warranted when earnings are cyclically depressed as they are now. This means that they stock is worth at least $114,000 (10 times) and likely in the neighbourhood of $123,000. So I believe Berkshire is still very good value at today’s price.
×
×
  • Create New...