calonego

All the hotels Sanjeev mentioned are good. The Radisson Admiral was recently renovated (a year ago?), it's also very, very close to the City Airport (if you're flying Porter).

The Strathcona is nice - very close to all the festivities as well (the closest!). http://www.thestrathconahotel.com/

I don't own this - but my retired mother does. - I was looking at lines of business that have historical abnormally low loss ratios (very long histories). Someone mentioned Lancashire on here and when I looked at it, for some reason (maybe because they "get it"!) Lancashire mainly writes in these small lines that have historically run 20-50% loss ratios. - It's a small office, few employees and underwriters - shareholder money is very close to the CEO's hands. - Employees have proper incentives (compt'd to underwriting profit). - Their actions (buy backs and divies) demonstrate management's understanding of their competencies and a humility of their success, probably clearer than any public company I've seen recently. It's unselfish for a CEO to dividend and buy back with the gusto these guys have. (no Kingdom building here!) Oh ya, it also bumps up the IV. - The buy backs have only been done efficiently and at proper discounts, very wise. - The majority of public insurance/investment Co's tend to suffer from either being poor at part 1, or part 2. Berkshire and FFH are good examples. Berkshire corrected the problem some time ago though. - Building an insurance company to invest float is generally not a good idea. Done well it can be phenomenally successful, but it's rather rare. FFH has been a success, but the share issuances at low BV multiples were extremely painful for shareholders. - The market will give a 2x BV to a P&C insurer that is very good at underwriting, a company like FFH can only attain a high multiple due to CEO lust/euphoria, which is much less certain and usually leads to some poor years following. I think a healthy BV multiple is warranted with FFH, but much less likely. (this isn't paramount to the thesis, but it can be interesting). Basically a company that does 20% ROEs due to underwriting will get a higher multiple than a company that gets 20% ROEs from investments (both should be worth about 2x BV if the risk of underwriting blow ups at Co1 matches the risk of an investment blow up at Co2). I'd personally rather own a great insurance/investment company, but there aren't many out there.

It's very liquid in the UK.

If you sign up with their IR you get emails on all their share buybacks - daily emails! (usually 100-200k shares/day, when they are permitted and the stock trades at/under BV) This one is beautiful: http://www.lancashiregroup.com/lre_group/media/releases/2010/2010-04-01/

The only problem is that people don't understand what they are operating. You can't idiot proof everything. Short of an electrical issue causing unwarranted acceleration (which would in no way cause the pedal to stick and doesn't seem to be the issue based on the evidence), I see no way this is the fault of Toyota. The study showing that Toyotas have a similar "pedal stuck" issue as other makes is evidence of the lack of an issue. So you have two problems - a pedal gets jammed by a floor mat, or a pedal return spring has a low probability of binding once worn. Either problem can be fixed by putting your foot under the pedal and moving it (or crouching down and pulling it up... but do so at your own risk, I don't want you crashing because you took ten minutes to do it, or your belly got stuck under the steering wheel to be my "fault"). If you hit the brakes and heat them up too much without slowing down the vehicle (depressing too little or going on and off the brakes), the brakes will not work. And how on earth would putting the car in neutral not work!?! Anyone with a basic understanding of mechanics or engineering would see the stupidity of this entire production. It is unfortunate that people have died.

AOL may be interesting to some of you as well.

I think Frank E. owns 20% or 22% of SYTE.

The "library" at BRK HQ has an entire filing cabinet drawer on FFH -

rranjan, He had many phenomenal long ideas turn out very well historically. Prior to his partnership and within it, from my understanding.

http://www.thestrathconahotel.com/sneakpreview.html Packer - I've had a few friends stay here and they always had good comments. The location cannot be beat (right downtown, near the train station/subway/financial district/sports venues/CN Tower)... It's very close to the Royal York (Fairmont), but should be much better priced and the rooms look newly renovated.

JEast - I recently stayed at a Hilton in SanFran near Union Square (got it for about $70/night on Priceline)... There were two minor issues: - The property has 3 or 4 towers and we were placed in the oldest one as we "didn't pay full price" - It's on the edge of one of the worst neighbourhoods I've ever been in (the Tenderloin) One odd thing I found amusing is that the Glide Church (the beneficiary of the Glide Foundation) is almost directly across the street... I was staying at the Hilton while the lunch auction was on. Basically you'll be fine if you turn right coming out of the lobby... Going left at night can be scary.

I found Ackman's assumptions on income from the properties and cap rates to be aggressive, especially considering the default event, the environment for buyer financing, the size of the portfolio and the court being in control.

FFH is at 260 now - it will be at almost 1300 in a decade if the 17.3% is correct - that may not be too far off, up or down, although my guesstimate would be a lower return. If you take a point in exactly 120 months - who knows where it's at (very dependent on the state of the economy at that exact time, etc). But there is a likelihood that in the interim a number like that is attainable (and a higher "now-to-peak" return). At 26%/annum, it would be trading at over $2,600...

Wynn was a guest at the BRK post AGM Sunday brunch (with about 200 other people).

The worst part about this is that no one will click on these ads. They aren't THAT annoying and if one finds them that annoying, block them in your browser. The unfortunate part is that Sanjeev isn't going to make his nut on them as I'm sure most of the recent clicking has been in error, humor, or energy exerted to try and help. Sanjeev, you may be getting hosed on the hosting and domain stuff, $500/yr is a ton of cash. I was running hosting servers before in some high-tech data-centers for way less, like 10 yrs ago. And there's gotta be a better way to generate some revenue to make the hurdle cost of running the site - not sure how - but I'm behind you on trying to make it break even or profitable. Can the ads be adjusted or focused? Can you sell WT or BL a banner?! ; ) JackRiver - Everyone realizes that the position of S.P. as founder/manager of this 'thing' has a positive PV to himself, or he believes it does, explaining why he won't sell it to you for the nominal annuity payment. But he's still supporting it at a negative cash flow and using his own time to do the admin crap - everyone else gets to read and post, he puts out the trash and mops the floor - we should be grateful.

David Sokol is no longer the CEO of MAEH - he's only the Chairman and claims he does 'special projects' at MA/BRK, which is likely code for something to do with doing research on companies they'd look to acquire... CEG is a good example, as is BYD. There are ways to put people in pre-CEO roles at BRK without defining it as such.

That's so sad - she was such a wonderful, energetic, and bright lady. Thank you for the note Sanjeev. So sad...

I found the build quality of the cars to be far sub-standard. They seemed very light and poorly built, even relative to an early '90's Hyundai... The paint was incredibly poor, there were a fair number of particles in it... panels didn't line up well, support structure was very flimsy. They can obviously build a cheap car, but it seemed far below quality of GM's worst offering IMO. One I examined was a concept, one was an off-the-line production model. Truthfully it reminds me of early American Auto's - hand assembled and somewhat uniform components (ie people bend and smash the parts into place/fit). Sounds like the operation of manufacturing the cars is reminiscent of say the River Rouge plant Henry Ford built... iron/rubber/polymer in - car out. Warren may be getting one, but I'm sure he'll stick to driving a Caddy. It's many, many years out before BYD could sell any quantity of safe cars to Americans, but the Chinese sure seem to like them! Dave Sokol seemed far more concerned with the batteries/electrical aspects of BYD over the cars.

I've done/have a few commercial properties and a self-storage site. Are you asking about multi-unit residential? No experience there...

Partner24 - As Granitepost is saying, all the increased demand should do is increase the required capacity, which allows for more capital in the electrical production and distribution business. It'll still be highly regulated, but you'll likely see more capital deployed there at fair, and lever-able returns. There would likely be a great amount of time/intellect/money spent on technology to improve the electrical system, but thats very different economics. It would help in making the world cleaner/more efficient, due to the high relative efficiency (and cleanliness) of large power generation systems compared to small motors. An internal combustion engine has a couple major issues - inefficiency (wasted fuel plus energy wasted in many moving parts and heat energy that is created but leaves through the exhaust pipe), and pollution - which in the case of a large plant/engine can be scrubbed far better. Having full pollution limiting equipment on a car would be incredibly costly and heavy.

Because of the market being closed Friday, CNBC will be re-airing a pile of great documentaries. I also really enjoy the American Greed docs - amazing what people do - Set the TIVO! Or park your but on the couch with some annuals and CNBC! http://www.cnbc.com/id/15837901/ Friday 12:00 A Fast Money ® 1:00 A Warren Buffet Billionaire Next Door Restoring Trust ® 2:00 A Paid Programming 4:00 A Warren Buffet Billionaire Next Door Restoring Trust ® 5:00 A The Billionaire Next Door: All Access ® 6:00 A House of Cards 8:00 A Scam of the Century: Bernie Madoff & The $50 Billion Heist ® 9:00 A Saving GM: Inside the Crisis ® 10:00 A Golf Digest Equipment Special 11:00 A Marijuana Inc. Inside America's Pot Industry ® 12:00 P Cuise Inc. Big Money on the High Seas ® 1:00 P The Entrepreneurs ® 2:00 P Who's Protesting Our Money? A Town Hall with FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair ® 3:00 P The Suze Orman Show ® 4:00 P Warren Buffett The Billionaire Next Door Restoring Trust ® 5:00 P American Greed #22 Strippers and Insider Trading ® 6:00 P American Greed #23 - Mustang Ranch Money Women and Murder ® 7:00 P American Greed #24 The Body Snatcher ® 8:00 P House of Cards ® 10:00 P Deal or No Deal ® 11:30 P Options Action Saturday 12:00 A Who's Protesting Our Money? A Town Hall with FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair ® 1:00 A Marijuana Inc: Inside America's Pot Industry ® 2:00 A Paid Programming 4:00 A Marijuana Inc. Inside America's Pot Industry ® 5:00 A The Suze Orman Show ® 6:00 A Options Action ® 6:30 A Paid Programming 7:00 P Deal or No Deal ® 8:00 P The Suze Orman Show ® 9:00 P The Suze Orman Show 10:00 P Deal or No Deal ® 11:00 P The Suze Orman Show ® Sunday 12:00 A The Suze Orman Show ® 1:00 A Deal or No Deal ® 2:00 A Paid Programming 3:00 A American Greed ®4:00 A The Suze Orman Show ® 5:00 A The Suze Orman Show ® 6:00 A Options Action ® 6:30 A Paid Programming 7:00 P DLife ® 7:30 P The Wall Street Journal Report 8:00 P Saving GM: Inside the Crisis ® 9:00 P Playing to Win: Inside the Video Game Industry ® 10:00 P Warren Buffett The Bilionaire Next Door: Restoring Trust ® 11:00 P American Greed #4 - Identity Theft and The Wheaton Bandit ®

Funny you mentioned that - there were recent posts about BMTC (CDN furniture), they have a DB plan and I recall them changing the '08 discount on the liabilities to 7% from 5% historically. I didn't mention it before, but it's not very cool (major difference). The non-discounted liabilities on P&C are very attractive - seen some others like this, but economically they should be discounted, one should factor that in (it's either extra equity or the time value is extra free CF).

The largest problem is uncertainty. A DCF is basically taking ownership of a company and comparing it to a bond CF. The problem is the CF isn't usually available, or it is lost and it clearly is not contractual (the case w/ a bond). If a company's equity is bond like, then maybe there is a case for a DCF, but that's only valid after a massive amount of analytical work on the business and and few businesses would qualify. It's easier to argue the validity of a DCF on a lease or a contract. Aggregated out (a business), it's rather difficult.

One day I aspire to be a full member like you Al! My fluffy pointless posts help...