cwericb

Just got off the phone with my son who has an insurance agency in Calgary. He no longer has the expense of maintaining an office as he and his agents now are able to work from their homes and do much of their work online. He has also been able to set up an agency in Toronto and other areas without the expense of having to maintain offices. He can also live pretty well wherever he chooses. The idea of working from home is nothing new but Covid restrictions have proven to millions that they can do this quite successfully. Depending on how widespread his shift turns out to be, it could have a major impact not only on office space, but also on residential real estate in cities. Here on the East Coast we are experiencing a major influx of immigration from other parts of the country as these people no longer feel that they have to live in large cities close to their offices.

Yes I think the 9% was probably was speculation. And yes, I doubt that OMERS sees Fairfax as a charity. Nice jump in FFH share price today.

Did I read somewhere a few weeks ago that it was 9%? Or am I imagining that?

Rarely see a "For Sale" sign around here any more, and when you do it usually has "SOLD" plastered across it.

RBC yesterday.

There was a thread here about how the housing bubble was about to burst. Numerous posters echoed the above sentiments. Sell. Don't buy, rent. Prices have to come down soon. That was seven or eight years ago. How has worked out so far? The world population in the mid 1970's was 4 billion. Today it is 8 billion. Don’t ignore the law of supply and demand. People gotta live somewhere.

I think the original theory was simply that he would share profits on the same scale as every other shareholder, although he certainly has a few more shares than I do. I don't find much about Fairfax that does to be 'normal' though.

In his defense, Prem's salary from Fairfax has been set at $600,000/year for decades. Considering that he is founder, chairman and CEO of a rather large conglomerate, his salary looks pretty paltry compared to others in that position. The fact that he gets dividends from the shares that owns ... well, so do we.

While that seems reasonable, I doubt we will see anything change in the foreseeable future.

I believe the theory behind that was that Prem was on a low (relatively) fixed salary and instituting a dividend would provide him with a substantial income that would ensure his salary was in line with what other shareholders received. However, that doesn't seem to be a reason for not increasing the dividend other than the fact that some might criticize him for increasing his own income.

Haha. Rum runnin has long been a Maritime tradition. Friend of mine's grandfather was a very well known rum runner back during prohibition. He built a very successful roadhouse out in the back woods that straddled the Maine/New Brunswick border. They always kept a spotter outside and when the U.S. officials made a raid, they would shift the booze to the Canadian side. When the Mounties raided they would shift the booze to the US side. Don't know if the two countries ever coordinated their efforts, but I do know for a fact that the family still has a lot of that money made back nearly 100 years ago.

Few years a guy complaining to a friend of mine said... “Goddammit, I just turned 65 and went down to file for my CPP (Canada’s federally run contributory pension plan) and they turned me down!! You rich guys get to collect and us little guys get shafted once again!! Goddammed gommerment!” My friend explained... “Listen, you never paid a single cent into CPP. You spent your whole life taking cash payments under the table. You did everything you could to avoid paying taxes. In fact it was only last week that you were laughing and bragging that you hardly paid any taxes during your whole life. That’s why you can’t collect CPP.” “Yeah, well it still ain’t fair!” And that unfortunately is the way a lot of people think. Another true story... Years ago Revenue Canada was doing an audit of fishermen in a certain part of our Province where it was a well known fact that the fishermen were dividing up payments for their catch and on paper they were spreading the payments among the family members including children to reduce taxes and ensure everyone in the family would all get unemployment payments. So this lady phones into the local talk show complaining about their community being singled out for this and how it badly reflected on people in the area. Said it was disgusting. And finished up the tirade by saying... “We make an honest living up here and I will have you know that, just like everyone else in the community, every single person in our family works their full 14 weeks every single year!” Fourteen being the minimum needed to collect unemployment payments. Meanwhile the rest of us were paying for her family's other 38 weeks.

Or, given the number of shares held by FFH it might not be that easy to sell without driving the price down. Like has been mentioned, it may well be that he is looking for a buyer of all the shares. Then again, it may simply an ego thing.

So that would tend to end any thoughts that Prem was hanging on to BB because he had inside information that something big was upcoming and that was his reason for not selling. I for one, am running our of excuses for him. So why is FFH seemingly making no attempt to sell shares? Isn't this the second sell by BB insiders recently?

Seeking Alpha article on Fairfax holdings Q2 https://seekingalpha.com/article/4456094-prem-watsas-fairfax-financial-holdings-portfolio-q2-2021-update?mail_subject=frfhf-tracking-prem-watsa-s-fairfax-financial-holdings-portfolio-q2-2021-update&utm_campaign=rta-stock-article&utm_content=link-0&utm_medium=email&utm_source=seeking_alpha

I’m just an East Coast country bumpkin but here are my ‘Seven Simple Steps for Fairfax” to elevate share price: 1) Build luxurious office suite in basement at 95 Wellington St W from which Prem can run Fairfax. 2) Ensure basement door firmly locked. 3) Hire top level PR firm to show the world how successful Fairfax really is today. 4) Ensure no media access to basement. 5) Replace Fairfax website with one not designed by a nine year old in DOS. 6) Check basement door remains locked. 7) When SP reaches 1.5 book, allow media to photo Prem, but only PR personnel allow to speak. I know this is blasphemy, but that’s okay, I’m probably working on a record for the “ignore’ list.

I was reading about Fiskers the other day and they look really interesting, but haven't they gone broke once already? It seems to be a big risk to deal with a small company as much as I like their product. You have to consider parts availability. That is why I had a Corvette for a a few years rather than something a little more exotic as if I was traveling I knew I would never be too far from a GM dealer.

Kia Telluride - if you are lucky enough to find one. I lucked out, traded my 2016 Kia Sorento and ordered a Telluride in February with all the bells and whistles and got it in April. Light coloured Napa leather is beautiful as is the suede headliner. Highest rating Consumer Reports has given a vehicle, has won numerous awards for quality, and Car & Driver, Motor Trend, etc have all raved about them. Some of the magazine testers liked it so much they even went out and bought one for themselves. The Telluride has been in production since 2019 and yet some dealers are still getting thousands over MSRP. Saw a year old one with 30K on it advertized for more than I paid new. Love the HUD where speed, speed limits, map directions, lane keeping, etc are all projected onto the windshield. Car will actually drive itself, but Kia has it set that it sounds a warning if your hands are off the wheel for more than 15 seconds. Lights are all LED and are very bright. Heated and cooled front and 2nd row seats are nice and third row stays down for our Greyhound. This is my second Kia and they are well built vehicles. Fit and finish are way above their price range and in four years with the Sorento had no problems. But Kia wouldn't offer a five year Canadian (10 in the US?) bumper to bumper warranty on a poorly built vehicle. Have a VW Eos retractable hard top for a toy, but a Porsche is beckoning.

I tend to agree with glider. We can all make guesses about Blackberry and what they have under development. On the other hand, Prem Watsa is in a position to KNOW what BB has under development. He may well believe that there are significant projects coming that have yet to be announced and that those developments could have an appreciable impact on share price and the value of the company. Wishful thinking?

I probably agree with Daphne in that Fairfax might well want to sell the company as a whole. However, could there be a situation where Prem is aware of projects presently under development within Blackberry that in future could have a major impact on the value of the company? After all, this is a tech company with a lot of smart people working for them. Or is that just wishful thinking?

What he said....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Lassonde Pretty impressive resume.

No question that Prem has a lot of skin in the game, but I doubt he has plans to sell those shares any time soon, if ever. He knew the shares were undervalued at the time, had the money and reeled in a bunch more shares of his own company. But to put things in perspective, Prem is a billionaire. One billion is $1,000 million. $150 mil is not as significant as it might seem. I doubt he looks at his shares the same way as most investors in the company do. Investors don’t have the same attachment or loyalty to Fairfax that Watsa has. After all, it is HIS company and his timeline is likely unlimited. If he passes on, the shares likely go to the family. I also think that in his mind that he and the company are essentially one and the same. Most investors are looking to take a profit and move on and invest elsewhere, aren’t they? Prem and Fairfax are attached at the hip. Prem simply saw an opportunity to buy back part of his empire at an attractive price. I would view Prem’s buying shares quite differently from the average CEO buying shares in a company that employs him. The average CEO hasn’t built the company from scratch over 40 years. Most CEO’s don’t own a substantial portion of the company they manage and if the average CEO gets a better deal with another company, off they go. Prem is never going to sell out and move to another company as an employee.

Greg, here is the one that gets me.... “I wish Prem Watsa would pay a little more attention to Fairfax’s share price.” Someone always comes back like... “Oh no, no no, he should just concentrate on running the company.” Yeah? Would you feel that way if you needed to sell some shares? Well, this IS the 21st century. In my very humble opinion it wouldn’t hurt Fairfax one little iota to be a little proactive in promoting the strengths of the company and polish up its image. Just for starters, their website looks like a kid designed it in 1985. And I don’t care what Berkshire’s site looks like because Fairfax is not Berkshire. Check out www.fairfax.ca Slick, eh. There is an old saying, “A shiny apple will always sell for more than one just fell off the tree.” Fairfax needs a little polish on their image. In 20016 and again in 2018, FFH was pushing towards $800 C per share. Today things are looking great and shares have jumped all the way up to $560 C from $350 - where share price was in October 2020. So, at the lofty figure of $560 it has finally increased to where it was SEVEN - YEARS - AGO. (Sorry for the caps because I try not to swear here.) I think that Fairfax is essentially a good company. I think Fairfax should have a great future. But this company needs to grow up and realize that perception is important. So here is a hint. If Fairfax has a PR department, fire them. If they don’t, get one! And it that doesn’t tick off some people here enough... I have seen several situations where Prem has NOT come off all that well in public. So rather than promoting Prem Watsa all the time and polishing his personal image and boost his ego, how about hiding him in a back room for a while and let a PR department polish up the company image.

Integrity. Yes that is what I was getting at in my previous post on Fairfax and it legal problems. Essentially the judge in the matter found that Prem integrity was at very best - questionable. And that is overlooking that the deal was crooked in the first place as was found by the court. Wasn't Prem also on the board of Fibrek when it rejected a higher bid for the company only to sell to FFH at a lowball offer? I think this is one of the reasons that the market discounts Fairfax when pricing it. As it is still my largest holding I sincerely hope that he will clean up his act and that the market will come to trust the company again. And before I get criticized for the above, I would suggest reading the reports from the trial and perhaps explain the situation rwith Paul Rivett and Torstar because I think both are issues that raise questions about integrity. HOWEVER... I still think that Fairfax still has the potential to do very well in the future if it can keep its nose clean.