MarioP

Strange question. After WB is gone Greg will be the big boss. So he will do what ever he think is good for the long term of the company. He writes the mandat and have it approve by the board. Nobody will give him mandate

This is really terrific. Thank you to give us an acces to that. now if you can do a memorex of all the SEC documents ( 10k, 13f) you will be able to sell a lots of monthly subscription .

It won't be the same without Buffett. But I think we can hope for something similar to Apple under Tim Cook. The company is different but still great.

For the official Berkshire events here is a Nice document https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/meet01/visguide2023.pdf

It also asked Berkshire to address whether its lead independent director can override Buffett on risk matters or ask the board to consider them. Where in the world will you find somebody better than Charlie to do that? We have here the two most risk averse guys in corporate america and we have to find somebody to check them... Hey Mr Buss you better find somebody who will teach Lebron how to play before giving him all that money!!!

The premium cannot be base only on your driving. It is a part of it but if, for example, the cost of repairs increase or the number of car steal is increasing in your area or there is higher risk of a major weather event the premium will increase. What they can guarantee is that the premium would be higher if your driving is not better

See's Candy. A turning point in Buffett strategy

Kind of funny and a sign of a new area. Buffett always said to avoid investments in sector that can be disturb by technology. Now technology is messing up one of his investment made 50 years ago…

That remembrer me when he was buying KO. If he ask his brokers to buy everything under 140 he has enough liquidity to set the floor at that price. So it is not timing it is « this is my price for backing up the truck ».

Anybody proposing that doesn't understand Berkshire. A good part of the value is how the cashflow of the cash cow with limited growth is used to buy growth elsewhere or to provide capital for the insurances companies. If you breakup Berkshire you destroy that superb capital re-allocation machine. There may be a problem in future with the votes of index fund and the votes of institutional shareholder who invest in ticker instead of companies. “For the most valuable public company in the world, three individuals can in principle swing the vote of 17 percent of its shares. Generally, a significant fraction of shareholders do not vote, even if in contested battles. As a result, the 17 percent actually represents more like 25 percent or more of the likely votes in contested votes. That share of the vote will generally be pivotal.” In fact, the Big Three cast roughly 25 percent of the votes in S&P 500 companies. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/the-autopilot-economy/618497/ These three individuals are the one voting the shares of index funds of Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street. These are the kind of shareholders who wants to remove Buffett from the chairman seats and replace it by someone who can't care as much as Buffett for the company

Perhaps that was the condition for him to not pay for the broker. "they are useless. you will never get a better deal than this..I'm ready to let you shop around but you'll have to pay for it.."

Tobias Lütke at Shopify

From the new tab : Purpose of the SLC: ▪ Share sustainability strategies seem to me an initiative of Greg. BHE spend a lot on SLC and lots of stuff mais be reusable elsewhere. Sound like synergy. I don’t know if it is the begining of a slippery path

For the insurances business I think inflation is good. Each year premium is adjusted based on replacement value of the good insured. So earned premium will rose with no investment other than regulatory capital required, which we already have plenty.

Market cap is 12B. Si you buy back 8,3% of the company for 10% of Odyssey. My god. If odyssey value is 83% of market cap then the rest is really value like crap. 10 billion for Odyssey and 2 billions for the rest??? Or is the Yahoo market cap wrong?

1 B us$ Price range : 425 to 500us$. Financed by the sale of 10% of Odysse https://www.fairfax.ca/news/press-releases/press-release-details/2021/Fairfax-Announces-US1.0-Billion-Substantial-Issuer-Bid-and-Sale-of-9.99-Minority-Stake-in-Odyssey-Group/default.aspx

Same thing in eastern Canada. I just heard a spot at the radio from a door and window maker : « Come see us with your pay check stub and we will pay you 10% more »

Brk, AAPL, ATD.B (alimentation couche tard, Canada) at a lower entry price I would have MSFT, COST and SHOP in the mix. At actual price I’m happy with the 3 mentionned for 12% CARG

I never thought that earning in operating compagnies have an effect on underwriting ratio. So they can write coverage at the same price than Markel or Fairfax and have a better underwriting ratio. Now i understand even more the huge advantage of buying bond like company in the insurance subsidiary. I always tough that investment revenus wasn't include in the underwriting ratio just in earnings. And I follow Berkshire since 1990 :-\ Every body talking about breaking up Berkshire never mentioned that the insurance operations will be worth less if BRK sell BNSF.

Superb ! your timing the market definitely beat the timing in the market for the buy-and-hold folks. I don’t like the term market timing. It’s all about value and luck. Just like buying in january has nothing to do with the market. There is value in the subs not reflected in the price. So it seems a good entry point with little risk.

Agreed. However, there are some years when Fairfax will grow BV by 15%. There are 2 key drivers to Fairfax being able to hit 15%: 1.) insurance underwriting 2.) investment results - especially equities Given the hard market in insurance and how they are positioned today with their equity holdings i think they can hit BV growth of 15% in 2021 :-) I'll add a third key 3.) They will not blow a billion on some risky venture That is the main key for me. They showed us that they are able to do this. Sanjeev answer vigorously to my post but he says the same thing than me. I bought at 465 in january and waited the annual report to decide if it was a short term investment or for the longterm. Reading the report where everything positive where explain in great detail but the negative was hard to come by convince me to be a short term holder for this time just like Sanjeev position. By the way I have a very long story with Fairfax. It is probably responsible for half of my net worth. First buy in 1993 and sold at 3x BV for a ten bagger. I was one of the first to discuss about FFH with Sanjeev on MSN. Was lucky enough to buy back in 2003 in the exact day of the bottom at 70 and sold at about 8x that price. I run a concentrate portfolio of 8 to 10 stocks. I had a couple of in and out since that for a wash. Now i'm in for the ride back to BV.

What is the tax law on estate in USA? In Canada if the shares are for the children they have to pay the tax that would be calculated on a sale so you have to sell around 25% just to pay the tax for the kind of gain a long term holder have on BRKA. It is interesting that the record volume happen with upticks. High probability that Berkshire is buying a lots

In fairness to Prem, the insurance companies did have an outstanding year and the investments are almost all performing well. Security prices might not be, but the underlying companies (which is what Prem is referring to) largely are. All those answers about the rear view. I’m talking about the present, about what is written in the 2020 annual report. We had a bad year and Prem is not candid about it. That is why he didn’t convince me that the futur will be different.

What I make me dislike this letter is not one of the many point brought by many here which are good. It is simply the general tone of the letter and it began right at the second paragraph. In March, the S&P500 dropped 30% in 12 days. We absorbed the mark to market losses and thrived. We earned $218 million in 2020 and our book value per share increased by 0.6% (adjusted for the $10 per share dividend) to $478 per share. Our insurance companies had an outstanding year in 2020 and are growing significantly, while our investments more than overcame the March carnage by the end of 2020 and are continuing to perform well. Man we made 0,6% last year and every thing was outstanding????? A little more humility please. That was a bad year and start with explaining us why it was bad. Not telling me that every thing performed well. How can you tell that investments perform well when you lost more then 500M$ on a short? That is part of the investment result. Around 2001 I sold out because I was tired of the presentation of the result of insurance when there was catastrophe year. It was always something like "we had a good year if you exclude the catastrophe". How come in a good year they didn't exclude the premium collected for the catastrophe insurance? It sounds like they want the premium but don't expect to pay once in a while. If you want us to really understand how we doing without the catastrophe present us what are the premium we collected vs what we paid in 5 years periods. I was back in because of all the good news for the subs but this report remember me why it will not be longterm for me. They can make a lot in 2021 but there is a not negligible possibility that they will waste it again.