A_Hamilton

I assume the thought here being that a decline indicates deflation?

Don't take my word for it, but I believe the $17 / share cost was prior to the convertible investment, which again (just my rough guess) is probably showing $300m of (paper) profits. They did sell some common at a loss as well, so that has to factor in, but I think they are close to breakeven. I don't think the $17 includes the losses they took on total return swaps in BBRY before converting it into common. Without digging through right now, I believe cost is closer to $25 per share when including those losses.

Because I am getting nervous… During the last few weeks we have witnessed a short market correction… Which nonetheless was painful enough to prompt the FED into saying it is ready to stop the slow unwinding of QE and therefore to resume its stimulus… And the market promptly recovered… I like it less and less… And I demand more and more protection, meaning insulation from the general market. Gio Saw that too. Planning on a substantial increase in my FFH position come the new year when I roll my Roth 401k into my regular Roth IRA. Things haven't felt right to me for awhile - but seeing the reaction of general markets to a small correction was certainly disturbing and suggests that we are in fact addicted to the sugar high. Further, deflation in Europe appears even more likely than previously thought and small caps are better positioned for a fall than they've been previously and their bonds are killing it. What's not to like at roughly 1x book? Hey Zach, Did you buy the pinky? What custodian are you using, if you don't mind me asking? I wonder if they exempting the shares from the withholding tax (as they properly should) in your Roth? Thanks. I use TD Ameritrade for my Roth and own FRFHF in it. They do not take out the withholding tax. I get the full $10 per share.

They refile this every year.

I've sold the banks. I've been early. What's interesting is that CMHC insurance in force had been holding steady, and actually has been shrinking a little recently. CMHC historically has been about a 10% ROE business (your banks thank you). So someone has been willing to take in less premium to insure riskier than normal mortgages these days. More evidence of irrational behavior. The government effectively underwrites. Look at Tangible Common Equity / Assets and then Tangible Common Equity / Risk Weighted Assets in the Canadian banks and compare to JPM, BAC, etc. Canadian banks have some of the thinnest direct capital levels of any financials on the planet. The question is if/when the Canadian economy faces a recession, will the banks be bailed out of mortgages at par by the government or will they have to raise capital. If a large hit to real estate happens nationally I think the public outcry would be that shareholders are no longer entitled to 20-30% ROE's on obscene amounts of leverage on tangible common. I'm short the Canadian dollar...looked at the banks several times and the fact is if no recession/decline in housing happens in Canada you can get hurt very quickly. As an aside FFH has hedged all of its Canadian exposure back to USD.

A separate question. If one believes that Canada's housing market will have significant delinquencies in the future are you better off shorting the Canadian banks or shorting the Canadian dollar given the large linkages the banks have to the central government via CMHC?

Are there any thoughts from Canadians on this board in regards to Calgary/Edmonton? In a slowdown what happens to Canada's basic materials economy? I've thought about Houston in the early 80's a good amount and wonder why the same bust won't come to these cities. Would 25% vacancy rates really be that hard to believe if you had oil prices fall 30-40% and stay down for a few years (this is something everyone tells me cannot happen...which in my mind means the inevitable next step is that it will happen)?

Zach, I agree that BBRY's impact isn't so large as to cause a major impact on FFH's valuation. However, I think your valuation of the converts may need some refinement. The call option embedded in the convert went from $2 out of the money to in the money during the quarter. This is surely worth more than 12 million on a $500 million par value convert with a 6% coupon and $10 conversion price.

You don't need to become a member of FINRA. Everything before your paragraph beginning with the word "However" is what you need to do.

When you have a 4% savings rate and a median household income of $51,000 it's easy for that to happen. Also, the 4% savings rate has a fat right tail full of high income/high wealth individuals, so very little saving going on until you get into the 80%+ income bracket.

It's a great plan. Let's tax JPM's $40 billion of goodwill. Define Bill of Attainder.

I did not quite understand why you would not believe the accident year CR. Could you please explain? Thanks Vinod They sandbag the accident year reserve. If they think they are going to have losses of $100 on a policy they put $115 into the reserve. They say they are being conservative (which they very well may be, who knows what will happen between a reserve being established and claim identification/settlement. Courts could become more hostile to insurers, inflation could go up, an unforseen risk might not have been excluded from a policy). However, at a certain point you've reserved for the unknowns that I've bracketed and you are effectively setting up redundant reserves that you will bleed through calendar year combined ratios in future years. That is what FFH is doing...it's also what BRK.b and WRB are notorious for.

+1 It is good to see underwriting going in the right direction, but it is aided by $440 million reserve release. Accident year CR is at 100%. Vinod Do you still believe in their accident year combined ratios? They have to use the most conservative level that their auditors/independent actuary will allow. Here's a question for FFH management: How much inflation do you bake into your reserves and how is this level consistent with your view that deflation is likely across the western world?

USD :) Adjust for all of the unrealized gains this Q and subtract out the dividend that was paid and you are around $370-$375 in BVPS. Under $370 would be a decent bargain.

Perhaps, though with the gains in IRE, BBRY, RFP, KW, USG, LT bonds thus far this quarter and the only real offset being a loss on OSTK, BV today is substantially higher than reported BV...so not really sure it matters what they reported for year end.

Is it saying pension plan held investment which increased from $223mn to $389mn in 9 months? I wonder which one that would be. Mostly some large cap. Also structure of this transaction will point to Buffett's valuation of Berkshire. I think it was good bargain below 109 and still not very far from it. Valeant Pharma. Sequoia is one of the two managers of the pension plan and Valeant has been a grand slam home run for them. That's a good guess. Matches the reported gain. Also, I don't think this has anything to do with Buffett having a love affair with any of WPO's assets at this point. Kaplan has been a stain and a strain on the Gates' and his relationship . Melinda Gates resigned from WPO's board, Buffett resigned and I think he just wants to get away from for-profit ed.

Is it saying pension plan held investment which increased from $223mn to $389mn in 9 months? I wonder which one that would be. Mostly some large cap. Also structure of this transaction will point to Buffett's valuation of Berkshire. I think it was good bargain below 109 and still not very far from it. Valeant Pharma. Sequoia is one of the two managers of the pension plan and Valeant has been a grand slam home run for them.

I don't think so. The hedges are for providing losses to temper the gains on the the stocks in their portfolio providing gains to temper the losses on the stocks in their portfolio. Potential upside from equities begins after they've dropped the hedges -- until that point, the gains would likely be on the bonds and other things they may have (like potentially the deflation CPI thingies). That was good. Agree about the upside being muted for now. Think about the holdings in the background. In a 40% loss scenario needed to bring the hedges to break even (give or take) BKIR, BB, and RFP are gojng to drop alot more than 40%. I would wager 90% on RFP and BB. add to this: In the last major market drop FFh dropped 1/3 after reporting huge earnings. Agree with Dazel. FFh has the best bond group going. Why would you think RFP would drop 90% if the IWM dropped 40%?

I don't track FFH very closely, but when Watsa say that he was unwinding the hedges? He didn't. The hedges have very little value left between the writedowns/passage of time/continued increases in CPI. Don't know if I want that to reverse or not..

Ok I see what you mean. What you suggest is very reasonable. I don't have a good sense of how substantial these tax-exempt entities are, but I'm guessing they are a smaller part of this overall phenomenon? Thanks for explaining. I'd actually think they are a very big part of the cat bond market. These are high yield instruments that tend to have low correlation to junk bonds and equities. These are an ideal pitch to every pension fund and endowment.

Hi A_Hamilton, can you explain this some more? Thanks First, on 5-8% cost of capital. Think about a pension plan with an 8% return on plan assets assumption. If they can acheive that by owning cat bonds they'll allocate capital there. FFH has a much higher required return assumption which is one reason why so much capital will flow from pensions ane endowments into these structures. Separately, on UBTI, I don't know how other countries operate, but in the U.S. a non-profit or pension can't directly control a company. So, for instance, Harvard can't buy 100% of Kraft and operate it as a for profit entity but not pay tax because Harvard is a non-profit. If Kraft were owned by Harvard it could charge substantially less for products than other consumer food companies because they don't have to pay taxes and can still earn a decent return on capital. To me, since these entities are effectively in the business of writing insurance our laws should force non-profits to pay taxes on their cat bond returns as any other taxable player would.

I agree, that's the way it looks. But then why would someone with the industry stature and experience of Richard Brindle think that this capital is to be taken seriously?? These vehicles aren't been run by complete novices either. As gio already pointed out, the 'permanent capital' guys such as TPRE and GLRE, typically hire-in teams with lots of experience. And with the sidecars, the sponsors typically put up 10-15% of the capital at risk, so interests are at least somewhat aligned. At what point the benefit of the fees outweigh the sponsor capital at risk, I'm not sure, but I don't think we're there yet. I'm also interested to know whether anyone has an opinion as to how alternative capital may impact the direct insurance market down the line. I believe that to date alternative capital has probably been a net positive for direct insurers, lowering their reinsurance costs. In the future, perhaps alternative capital may find routes to market and reduce returns there too?? I'd add to this, what is the cost of capital for an endowment or pension plan? 5-8% depnding on the situation. These cat bonds are problematic in my opinion because if it were any other industry they would be treated like UBTI (after all they are effectively in the business of writing insurance), how can there be taxable competitors with this disadvantage?

Does any one have comments from Buffett on the % of daily volume he maxes out at when building positions/exiting a name? I'd be interested to read any intelligent thoughts about this from others as well. Assume you plan to hold the name for years and aren't day trading. Thank you. A_Hamilton

wrong. the company is incinerating cash. it burned almost half a billion in the last 39 weeks and cash burn accelerated in the most recent quarter. your fcf number is astonishingly wrong. Chen's stated objective is to "arrest" cash burn. Thank you Wellmont. I was seating here since yesterday waiting for someone to point out that barely two months after the $1B cash infusion (after the failed go private attempt) Blackberry is going back to Fairfax for $250M more in cash. And no one is asking why, or even considering it to be worrisome. Remember the days when part of the RIM bull case was how they had all this cash on their balance sheet with no debt etc... but now two months can't go by without the need for an additional cash infusion. Come on guys... COME ON!! BBRY didn't go back to FFH. FFH was given an option to invest and they exercised it. The question is did FFH exercise it without partners because i.) they believe strongly in the story, ii.) the converts are worth more than the original tranche as the common has rallied since the first $1 billion piece was announced, or iii.) cash burn is terrible and/or FFH couldn't find anyone else willing to put a penny into this thing.

Al, of course he has his inconsistencies! Yet, he is the one who created an $8 billion company from scratch. Not me, neither you, nor anyone on the board (at least that I know of!). Therefore, the real question is: has he lost his mind? From a first class entrepreneur, has he suddenly become third tier? Gio He has not adapted to having large amounts of cash available. It is all back to the argument you had on the other thread. If they are gojng to be in the insurance business they need to invest for cash flow, not lumpiness. If they are going to be a PE shop then this is fine. The high debt, and poor cash flow of this style is damaging the insurance operation. Again, I repeat: 1.4 billion could have generated a lot of cash flow directly to Fairfax. 150 to 250 million per year. instead it was thrown away on a speculation. Think about that while you defend them Gio. Where are you finding these businesses with sustainable cash flow yields of 11-18% in this environment? I want in on that action.