Partner24
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Posts posted by Partner24
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Crip, excellent post. I have nothing to add.
Cheers!
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We still live in a capitalist system. Shareholders are the ultimate owners of a company.
They decide who will be on the board of directors. If the board does not his job properly and don't slap the fingers of a greedy CEO who speak left, but walk right, they can show the exit doors to the board members and chose a more appropriate CEO. That's their right, but no one will force them to use it.
I'm surprised that no one like Gabelli has made some noise by proxy over the Sardar case so far. It would be a very easy target...far more easier than what Sardar done with the past BOD.
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This is a nod to obvious shareholder disappointment, but it does not change what has been shown about Mr. Biglari's temperament, judgment and tone-deafness. How likely is he to execute the long range plan of keeping excellent managers with a personality that is all about him?
He has had his "naked moment" and there's really no coming back from that, at least for me. Same is true for Cooley and the Board.
You wrote it better than I would have done it myself. Simple, clear and quick. Thank you RRJ for saving me some time ;D
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So, I figure the data set is meaningless.
Uccmal, I agree with that statement, unless the company is somewhat difficult to understand and the indisers are selling "everything they can".
Cheers!
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Thank you Prem for walk the talk. I'll never forgive what you said few years ago at the AGM about what was deeply anchored in your mind and the mind of the board.
May the "anchor" last forever.
I'm looking forward to be there with my son when he'll be old enough to understand (he's 5). Maybe he'll ask you a question.
Thank you for the results so far. I hope that you'll live for a very long time. May I split your age in two? I'll take a 1 for 2 FFH stock reverse split in exchange if you want too. Deal? ;)
God bless you, take care and long live Fairfax!
Cheers!
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Good post netnet. I appreciate the effort that you put to analyse your mistakes. It's how an investor get better with time. When an investor don't recognize and analyse it's mistakes, tell me how he will not repeat them in the future? So congragulations.
Here are my 2 cents on your points:
1) There will never be "the next Warren Buffett", just like there will never be the next Wal-Mart, Michael Jackson, Bono, Pavarotti, Madonna, McDonalds, etc. When we try thing about a smaller size copy of something, we undoubtely make a misconception mistake;
2) Group think can be a good thing and a bad thing because the "crowd" can be right or wrong. In the end, you have to be confident enough yourself about something, because in the end you end up with the results. A crowd opinion is not an alternative to good judgement.
3) Usually no need to. Do a BRK shareholder really need to meet Warren Buffett to trust him? Not necessarely. It's a case by case situation.
4) Indeed! Back to point 3, that's usually a good reason to meet the CEO directly or have someone whom you trust it's judgement to meet him. And ask some difficult questions if needed doesn't cost a dime and can avoid someone to save thousands of dollars in financial mistakes. So it can be a very "lucrative" per hour task!
A track record can help a lot, but it's not the only thing. A company success is usually a bumpy ride i.e. there is some time when things get more difficult. It's usually when you'll see if the CEO wants to hide it's mistakes or be truly candid about them. Compensation can speak a lot too. When I see huge stock options outstanding, in the end the CEO will be more affected by the score board than what's happening in the playing field. It's job is to focus on the ball, not meet the score board employee too much and try to convince him that he's a good baseball player. Or his overall compensation is quite high, I guess that the guy is not frugal enough. There is some other hint like that too.
Cheers!
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I didn't like the Snowball book (red 2 or 3 chapters and then closed the book), but that article has some valid points of view. As long as the comments are fair, even if they are negative, I welcome them. It's good to see the two sides of a coin.
Cheers!
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Very interesting thread. I'll study some of these names that I never heard about.
Cheers!
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http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100920-708528.html
Let me be clear on one point: I can’t predict the short-term movements of the stock market. I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month — or a year — from now. What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up. So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over. Warren Buffett, october 17th 2008
The good news is that spring is not over yet (IMO), but that being said, the S&P 500 is approximately 20% higher now than when WEB wrote that.
Cheers!
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Looking for short term "alpha"? Thousands of companies out there. It's fair to say that when you enter in the Fairfax "restaurant", there is no short term stock performance oriented stuff on the menu. If we're long term investors, it's what happen on the basebell field that truly matter most, not the maniac depressive guy who enter the numbers on the scoreboard.
Cheers!
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I've red the further posts since the last time I've writen something.
As I've already said, as this board grow, it might be harder and harder to keep it's long term culture intact (respectful, pragmatic, long term oriented, less Wall Street oriented, etc.).
It's just my two cents, but we must remain vigilant, because if we don't, it's culture will get really diluted and we'll lose our footprint in the World Wide Web.
Cheers!
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rick, I guess it's also a matter of humility. I guess See page 10:
http://www.fairfax.ca/Assets/Downloads/100305ceo.pdf
Someone to beat that? How many so called "sophisticated professionnal" investors have beat that long term track record? Some, but surely not a lot!
It's not very usual for an individual investor who studied value investing to delegate the investment decisions to someone else. I try to focus on the after tax long term return, not my ego, and frankly, so far, that policy led to satisfying returns with FFH
and I've been able to finance a home without the need of CMHC, do some work on it and keep 50% of my money for retirement.
That being said, it's also a matter of time to spend on research. I don't have the time to search for enough ideas. It would be a different story if I was doing that full time.
Cheers!
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Fairfax is the leading horse in my portfolio in terms of intrinsic value per share gains over the last few years (and Mr Market did take notice), so it's high.
One of the basic teachings of Peter Lynch is to not cutting the flowers and watering the weed. So I let the flowers grow, unless:
- They've reach full intrinsic value
- I've found something more interesting (and no, the grass is not necessarely greener on the neighboor yard and I can sit quietly in one room without the need to buy or sell something).
- The long term prospects of the business are not good enough anymore
Fairfax have not reach full intrinsic value, I didn't find a clearly greener yard yet and the long term prospects of the business are still good enough to me.
And since I don't manage money for others, I have the full liberty to handle swings in stock prices without feeling that I'll lose some part of my paycheck, so I don't need 30, 20 or even 10 names in my portfolio. Just a few is quite enough to me at this moment.
Cheers!
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Hi jimmer,
Welcome to this board!
how would you get to that 10%?
With my pay checks! ;D
Seriously, do you feel confident enough that you are getting good value enough by buying Fairfax now? I don't know if Fairfax will lose 10%, 20% or even 50% of it's actual price. That is something that I've never been able to predict (and fortunately didn't tried neither!), so I can't help you with any buying strategy except for finding the actual offer attractive or not.
Cheers!
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56,8% no so far...
No wonder why Fairfax is having a substainable discount to intrinsic value, it's shareholders are too cheap! ;)
Where are you, Jim Cramer?! ;D
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Bronco,
I never owned WRB because in my book, they are very good underwriters, but they do not have the same talent at investing.
To me, insurance is two sides of a coin. Underwriting and investing. Both can makes you rich or "kill" you. So I have to be at leat confortable with both, but I would prefer to be confortable with underwriting (very low or no cost float) and very appealed with investing. Investing can truly helps when you are in a soft market. Just take a look at FFH book value per share CAGR over that soft market period.
Cheers!
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Too bad the SEC isn't as sophisticated
Indeed!
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Invest now?
I think that the intrinsic value of FFH is far higher now than it was few years ago. Yes, the stock somewhat followed the economical progress that FFH made, but it was dirt cheap at the beginning. So, even if FFH is near a multiyears high, to me, the price/intrinsic value is still attractive today.
In the future, I think that people will look at what the P&C insurance sector stock prices on a chart and, some will say "Gee, they were lucky then", especially at some of the best like FFH, MKL, WRB, etc. "Luck" is the opportunities that the market gives you to buy or sell something. "Success" is somewhat related to not sucking your thumb.
But I guess it is also a matter of the margin of safety that you ask for. With FFH, the margin of safety that the market actually provide is enough to me. I would be happy it they were thousands of FFH kind of businesses and managers out there and I could choose the cheapests of them all, but that's not the case. That being said, at the actual price, I'm confident that in 10 years, I'll be happy with the return that I'll have with FFH.
Just my own opinion.
Cheers!
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Few reasons:
- Trustable and friendly people
- Skilled long term investors
- Low cost
- The return I had since the last 7 years!
- Simplify my investing life.
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Some friends wanted to start an investment pool nearly a decade ago. One wanted to invest in technology, I wanted to invest in property and casualty insurance. How do you match these needs? Invest in a tech stock that provide services for insurance companies? ;D
I guess that the risk with these pools is the "follow the crowd" mentality. Actually, the "crowd" want to buy low yield treasuries.
Cheers!
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A guide to accounting basics and a good and simple book or two about value investing.
If you want stock selection results fast, I would use past stuff, but by hiding names. I guess I would take Coca-Cola in the 20's, 30's or 40's and name it Fizz Bubble Company, a at that time very popular tech companies with "Motor" names in them, some retailers, etc. with the financials and the charts, asking them to make a choice between 15 companies or so, and then see the evolution of them year after year and readjust their choices if they want to. They would see the evolution of these companies (financials, significant news, stock price) year after year. After 10 years or so, then I would choose the winner. You could do things like that with a mix of compagnies in a given industry too.
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It looks that we have a partial answer as to what insurers will be doing with all the excess capital that is out there... share buybacks.
Makes sense to me, unless their reserves are understated and they'll need that capital to cover the additional costs over time.
Some keep dry powder because they think that some competitors will be in trouble and the opportunity to invest their capital at attractive rates will be interesting.
Time will tell. So far, we're still in the "soft market" chapter. Cheers!
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Hi bargainman,
This observation of mine wasn't directly related to his compensation or ownership % of the company.
I haven't seen the details yet about these.
Cheers!
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Does anyone know what M. Smith's insider ownership status is? It's great that he's creating so much share holder value but I've always had a hard time finding what % of the companies he owns. Does anyone know? It doesn't look like her personally owns any of TTT...
I've digged a little bit deeper in their last annual report. They convertible bonds and payment in kind outstanding wich will eventually dilute common shareholders. See note 26 on page 51. I haven't seen the details so far
Age of board members
in General Discussion
Posted
Gee...nobody in the 8 years old category? Guys, what about our future? We can't teach new dogs old tricks or what? ;)