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MrB

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Posts posted by MrB

  1. Also, merchant power generators have been killed because margins are tied to the price of nat gas. 

     

    Might be able to find some value there that is not directly related to nat gas production and distribution.

     

    Interesting. I was also thinking CLD Cloud Peak Energy that is the lowest cost thermal coal miner. It is not like coal is going to disappear, there are huge legacy costs.

     

    How much thinking? Had a quick look recently and looks interesting compared to ANR, BTU and ACI.

    Cloud-Peak-Energy.pdf

  2. Just wonder if Fairfax is with him again, and is giving him some $20-50M in seed money. It would be only some small token coin for Prem, but with probably some good long term rewards. I would definitely appreciate it.  ;D ;D ;D

     

    I didn't realize Fairfax had given money to Burry. How much had they given him?

     

    Well,... according to Uccmal's knowledge here at the board and my own knowledge speaking shortly with Brian after the AGM,... they were investors in Scion, his old fund. They had  some insignificant amount with Burry.

     

    Here's my old post about this subject:

    http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/fairfax-financial/fairfax-betting-on-demography/msg85431/#msg85431

     

    I finally looked today at my phone pics from the April AGM.

    http://s4.postimg.org/fv7ig1xbx/image.jpg

    Brian is the humble genius explaining his investment duties at Fairfax.

    (I was at this moment behind the camera... making the pic).

     

    I only hope they take this time some bigger slice of the cake. :P

     

     

     

    Best bond investor in the world...by far...even excluding the CDS trade...most humble guy and a fantastic teacher!!!

    He is a rangdang Hero!

  3. On the one hand you can buy a $1 stock at 50 cents, while management is buying out your partners aggressively and sell at $1 or more 5 minutes later or 5 years later depending on the mood swings of the market.

    On the other you can throw darts at a list of stocks and trade accordingly.

     

    It is possible to produce satisfactory returns between those extremes, but the probability of success scale from very high to very low.

     

    Choose the probability that you are comfortable with. Good luck and I look forward to meet you in the markets.

     

    P.S. I just finished the Shipping Man due to the rec on this board. Although I hated about every minute I spent reading it, afterwards I thought to myself; I earn a living off guys like that. More power to them!! ;D

  4. JEast,

     

    This is the man that bought it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Moroun.

     

    Here's a brief comment from Forbes article:

    The Ambassador was privately built in 1929 by a palm reader turned financier, Joseph Bower. It became publicly held when Bower put his company, Detroit International Bridge Co., into bankruptcy in the Depression and issued stock as part of a reorganization. In the late 1970s the sage investor Warren Buffett acquired 25% of the stock, emboldening Moroun to act. In 1979 he used his small trucking company’s credit line to buy out Buffett and acquire the rest of the company for a total of $30 million. Thus it became the only major U.S.-Canada crossing that is privately owned. The bridge’s likely worth today:half a billion dollars or more.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2012/01/12/why-one-rich-man-shouldnt-own-an-international-bridge/

     

    I don't know how accurate this information is, but going from $120m-$500m in 34 years = 4%/annum. Thereby concluding Buffett got offered the right price. Any franchise is for sale at the right price....even Coke..as Buffett alluded to previously...he made a mistake not selling it back in 06/07 I think it was.

    Again, assuming the above info is correct, which is a big if.

  5. That was a great compilation.  Particularly the Wesco meeting notes all in one place.

     

    The funny thing is the 1996 Worldly Wisdom (Stanford) speech that I have been trying to locate is not their either.  It's rather curious.  There is a copy in Poor Charlie's Almanack, which I don't like the edits and a good version on OID, but their web site is down and I lost my OID issue.

     

    I dont have the "unedited" version but here it is. If you do get hold of the OID version, I would love to read it !

     

    This is the speech I am after--Stanford Law 1996, but unless I'm wrong (Mr.B can you check) this is not what was published in OID.  It has edits, e.g. that say that Charlie is going to talk about Coca Cola but he doesn't at least not in that section. 

     

     

     

    thanks

    Qleap

    I don't want to put up the IOD copy, rather PM me.

  6. folks Jim chanos presentation the sohn conf

     

    http://www.marketfolly.com/2013/05/jim-chanos-sohn-conference-presentation.html

     

    he is short wdc/stx

     

    anyone have the actual presentation

     

    would like to see if he present anything that we have not discuss already

     

    I was disappointed, by Chanos' remarks because he did not provide meat. I almost have a feeling he was just winding up DE, who owns(ed) both.

    The following gives a good sense of what it was about. The meat is in the comments below the short blurp

     

    http://seekingalpha.com/currents/post/1014321

     

     

     

  7. Thanks for the feedback.

     

    I am generally more concerned about whether the work gets done and if it takes someone 5 minutes then more power to them. As long as I meet my budget targets and they deliver then I will not miss the headache of having to employ someone and they will be spared the torture of sharing an office with me.

     

    With work, I'm thinking it is possible to outsource some basic tasks initially, like getting me the annual reports of company x and its competitors, industry reports, management background checks, industry specific info etc. This can take quite a bit of time as soon as you move into more inefficient markets.

     

    Also, hunting for very specific information, as in sleuthing, can take a lot of time and is a skill which few people have. You need a bit of Dick Tracy, IT skills, understanding of information sources, lateral thinking and some plain old common sense.

     

     

     

  8. Does anyone have strong views or experience with this?

    I had great success building up relationships globally with people I hardly ever see or in some cases have not even met. They made a great contribution to my research effort, but they are mostly of the PM variety.

     

    I have been toying with the idea of using analysts more regularly irrespective of where they live and without requiring them to move from where they are living today. I recently decided to allocate part of our budget to potentially use for this purpose, so it is more than a casual thought.

     

    I am concerned about the practicality of the idea, but is it really impossible to say have an office in the US and successfully employ some brilliant young analyst in Asia without requiring him/her to move to the US?

     

    Your thoughts/feedback is appreciated.

     

  9. Sanjeev, I hope I am not breaking some protocol, but a friend wanted me to ask around and I forgot to circulate it at the FFH festivities. I don't say this easily, but the people are fantastic and probably one of the best investment houses in the world to work for. The following are what they are looking for.

    Please PM me if you are interested.

     

    Looking for an experienced research analyst (10-15 years’ experience) to join the investment team of a growing, investment led wealth management business 

     

    Requirements/Abilities

     

    • Predominantly equity focus

    • Passionate interest in research and business analysis

    • Produce high quality investment research based on fundamental analysis

    • Monitor existing holdings and source ideas through qualitative and quantitative screens

    • Work unsupervised

     

    Other information

     

    • Working within a small investment team of 12 people, reporting directly to the 3 lead managers

    • Team primarily manage multi-asset class portfolios with focus on long term capital preservation

    • Style is unbenchmarked, value orientated and concentrated

    • Focus is on major markets and generally > $750m market cap

     

    Salary

     

    • Negotiable based on ability

     

    Location

     

    • London, City

     

  10. I am biased, because I am a big fan of Richard Oldfield, the author. I was quoting Charlie two days ago when he said, when you choose your heroes, make sure they're dead. Otherwise they will end up disappointing you. Richard is someone that I feel very safe about. Really standup guy.

     

    I won't put the book in the top three, but it is certainly a recommended read. I think it will mature into a classic over the years. Just a well rounded entertaining read for investment nuts.

     

    Richard is a Fairfax fan too.

  11. "More generally, I'm interested in knowing how to find the SEC filings for these, just to get my SEC-fu up."

     

    You know you can search on Edgar? You've got to go back to between late 2008 for some and search around a lot but they're all there.

    http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html

     

    This hasn't updated for some time but it's still online.

    http://www.stockwarrants.com/about.htm

     

    Yes, I just don't know how to search for the TARP warrant prospectus for each one (e.g., if I look up BAC, there are tons and tons of filings--how do I search just for the warrants?).  I realize this is a newbie question, I just don't know how to do it.

     

    BAC link was posted earlier in this thread.

  12. Hopefully now I'm understood.  At all times I have far less money on the table (except in year 5 and 6), and less money on the table means less risk guys!  Yes, same upside!

     

    As long as you said, that the stock appreciates.  If it doesn't than as you also said, both the warrants and LEAPs are worthless.  But the common would still retain it's valuation based on market price...more certainty, less risk, less reward.  Whereas the LEAPs provide you the same return as the warrants with less capital upfront.   

     

    You forgot one aspect though.  The warrants are adjusted for dividends and buybacks.  If BAC starts to return large amounts of capital over the next 3-4 years, and $10.5B is a pretty good start with all of the remaining legacy issues, then would the warrants not be the better investment...albeit all of the capital upfront?  Cheers!

     

    If the anti dilution adjustments are more than icing on the cake for your investment case then I will be careful with lumping those two together. In the case of the latter words such as "tender" in the language and the actual formula might trip you up if you are not 100% clear about its intended result. The end result of adjustments under the two scenarios are very different.

     

     

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