cwericb

I hate to disagree with some members of this board because i have the utmost respect for their opinions, but the "split shares and I'm gone" concept seems to be a bit of an elitist position. Not everyone is a fund manager or can afford to own thousands of shares. There would seem to be very little downside in splitting shares from what I can see. From past experience it seems a given that when a stock splits, liquidity on the market improves, the shares become more available to the smaller investor and the price increases. There might also be some other spin off from having a wider base of shareholders. Now when I shop around for personal or company insurance I make it a point to consider FFH as an insurer. Why would any company who deals with the public want to keep a low profile? When investors complain about FFH shares selling for a lower ratio to book than some competitors, might that not that have something to do with its low profile? The more shareholders there are, the more people who will do their research and recognize the integrity of this company and the farsighted investments they make. That in itself will tend to snowball and help keep prices in the range where they should be. And if a stock split improves prices - what's wrong with that, isn't that why we invested in the first place? I often read where FFH shareholders say they don't really care about the short term pricing, but in my opinion, the higher the average price, the better because who knows when one might want to sell for any number of good reasons? As a small investor, I know that I for one would own more of FFH if it was selling for a lower price.

Seems that the FBI agent who cleared Fairfax is now pursuing SAC and Cohen. This is a very interesting article. http://www.iii.co.uk/news/?type=afxnews&articleid=7657202&subject=companies&action=article Lest anyone think Prem's claims against Cohen and friends are a little far fetched (letters to his church, crank calls, etc), those incidents seem to pale in comparison to some of the other things that were alleged to have happened at SAC. "In a lawsuit earlier that year Tong had charged that his male supervisor, Ping Jiang, then a top SAC trader, forced him to perform oral sex on him before completing a trade, according to people familiar with the investigation and court papers. Tong also alleged Jiang ordered him to take female hormones to turn him into "the ideal analyst/trader," combining both male and female characteristics, the court documents note." Sounds like Fairfax probably wasn't the only party getting screwed. Sorry, I couldn't resist that.