berkshiremystery

Wow,... I guess some of us haven't been born yet, 60 years ago. But,... I actually have some older hard copies dating back some decade ago. But mostly I have the full last decade in digital pdf-format,... well, I actually edit the single digital pdf-pages back into the original weekly magazine format (part 1, 2 & 3) with some Adobe software, thus it's in easier read. Maybe you might get older issues in public or university libraries,...

Well,... they file such a report each year around this time,... so it's nothing unusual. It seems they also have a Buffett like hurdle "at prices no higher than a 10% premium over the then-current book value of the shares." We might see them this year probably buying some more share back at current prices.

Some new debate about the London Whale. Exactly Whose Money Did the London Whale Lose? Sep. 24, 2012 - Bloomberg by William D. Cohan http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-23/exactly-whose-money-did-the-london-whale-lose-.html?cmpid=yhoo.view Whose $6 billion did JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) lose during the now-infamous London Whale debacle? Was it depositors’ money or shareholders’ money? Or was no money lost at all? And was the whole thing the very “tempest in a teapot” that Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon originally called it? Evangelisti said depositors lost nothing and, in fact, the CIO account has an embedded $10 billion unrealized gain. This leaves me feeling a little like the casino executive in “Ocean’s Eleven” who, upon realizing the casino’s vault had just been robbed of close to $163 million, incredulously asks Andy Garcia’s casino-owner character: “I don’t understand. What happened to all that money?”

I found accidentally some good transcript of last years interview with Guy Spiers in Zurich. http://www.manualofideas.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/guy-spier_manual-of-ideas_2011-11.pdf Exclusive Interview Transcript (lightly edited, may contain errors) Interviewee: Guy Spier, CEO, Aquamarine Capital Interviewer: John Mihaljevic, Date and place of interview: November 2011, Zurich, Switzerland

Not sure, if they are already available. It might take some while until he has some transcript ready. At least everbody could have had a chance to met him in London at the Olympics,... not sure, but I think he was there,... probably had some mental jogging marathon ;D

Well,... actually no,... but Bon Jovi was involved in the promotion of philanthropy at the Forbes 400 Summit for Philanthropy. Here's some explanation video for this photo ---> ----- Or see my prior thread about this subject ---> http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/berkshire-hathaway/buffett-bon-jovi-perform-song-together-for-charity/msg80245/#msg80245

Also for the lusting readers,... the 3rd edition/summer issue of the Fairfax newsletter. It contains mostly an informative article with photos from the April shareholders meeting in Toronto. Fairfax also had a first business roundtable the day prior to the meeting for it's CEO's of Fairfax's major investee partners and respected economist Gary Shilling and Gordon Chang, a writer for Forbes. Not sure,... if Sanjeev can answer the question,... but I remember him saying that Prem and his folks were upstairs at the Fairmont, at some meetings before they came downstairs to see us. So I presume that this might have been this other event. The Fairfax Newsletter (Issue: Vol.1, Issue.3, Summer 2012) Fairfax Shareholder's Annual Meeting http://72.32.129.160/Theme/Fairfax/files/Fairfax%20Newsletter%20Third%20Edition%202012(np)_v001_q499ju.pdf

I just found while googeling your answer some minutes ago. HWIC had a job offering in the fall of 2009 with some target salary of $79,000.00. They were searching for some investment analyst, who could also speak Mandarin. There is some informative link to that older job offering. http://www.scribd.com/doc/23732176/Hamblin-Watsa

Here's the second issue of the Fairfax Newsletter with the cover story about "Fairmont Specialty Group". Unfortunately this PDF-file contains only the pages 1-3 of the letter. It seems that they publish the newsletter on a quarterly basis. Cheers! The Fairfax Newsletter (Issue: Vol.1, Issue.2, Spring 2012) April 2012 http://accidenthealth.fairmontspecialty.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Fairfax-Newsletter.pdf

Here I found by accident the details of Thomas Cook offer. Cheers! http://www.thomascook.in/tcportal/downloads/TCILLetterOpenOffer.pdf

There are quite a few partners at HWIC I might just post here a list: Ron Mitchell http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/ron-mitchell-c-a/12/868/595?trk=pub-pbmap Victor C.W http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/victor-c-w-ma-ca-cfa-frm-cpa-illinois/3a/349/724?trk=pub-pbmap Roshan Ramnarain http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/roshan-ramnarain-cfa/4/402/85?trk=pub-pbmap Ronald Schokking http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/ronald-schokking/2b/b74/a31?trk=pub-pbmap Leigh Anne Dunn http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/leigh-anne-dunn/16/b73/659?trk=pub-pbmap Reyer Barel http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/reyer-barel/3/810/432?trk=pub

Sure you did ;) http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/jan-2015-options-for-big-banks-happens-when/msg83480/#msg83480 ----- ----- ----- -----

Buffett Skips Conference, Curbing Travel After Treatment Sep. 20, 2012 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-20/buffett-skips-conference-curbing-travel-after-treatment.html?cmpid=yhoo Mr. Buffett has been undergoing radiation treatment and he just finished,” Debbie Bosanek, his assistant at Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire, said in an e-mail today. “His doctors advised him to avoid travel for at least three to four weeks after the treatments.”

Some endess dirt campaign,... now the former NY Post journalist Roddy Boyd wrote some weird article, accusing Fairfax hindering free speech. He accuses Fairfax of spending $100 million in legal and public relations fees over six years to hinder free speech. I would rather look with what people this Roody Boyd associates, because they seem to be the real shady characters. Patrick Byrne publicly — and explicitly — denounced journalists such as Roddy Boyd and Herb Greenberg, saying that they are carrying water for their short selling sources in order to bring huge financial gain to hedge funds. ----- How financial lawsuits muzzle free speech Sep. 20, 2012 - Reuters Blog http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/09/20/how-financial-lawsuits-muzzle-free-speech/

Fairfax Announces Acquisition of Additional Imvescor Shares Sep. 20, 2012 - Fairfax Press Release http://www.fairfax.ca/news/press-releases/press-release-details/2012/Fairfax-Announces-Acquisition-of-Additional-Imvescor-Shares1131140/default.aspx Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited ("Fairfax") (TSX:FFH)(TSX:FFH.U) announced today that it has acquired directly or through its subsidiaries 2,500,000 common shares of Imvescor Restaurant Group Inc. (TSX:IRG) ("Imvescor") at a price of $0.85 per share, bringing its total holdings in Imvescor to 8,199,309 shares or approximately 19.5% of the total common shares outstanding. Assuming full exercise of the common share purchase warrants of Imvescor held by Fairfax and no other warrants are exercised, Fairfax's ownership would be 24,533,309 shares or approximately 42.1% of the total common shares outstanding. The shares were purchased by private agreement for investment purposes pursuant to the private agreement exemption of applicable securities laws. Fairfax continually reviews its investment alternatives and may purchase additional securities of Imvescor from time to time in accordance with applicable laws.

I believe he did discuss AIG and it was just a comfort thing...anyone else who was there, can you confirm that. I've got the Pabrai Funds presentation, Annual Report, Dakshana Report and everything else floating around in my head right now. Cheers! I talked with him in Toronto,... there he said something, that AIG wasn't in his circle of competence... but forgot his exact words. Well, I did wonder a little,... because I thought that he would follow AIG at least a little bit,... and also know BB@Fairholme thesis.

Maybe you can try to get a flash-mop of 1,000 financial hippies to next year shareholder dinner at the Fairmont Royal York,... smashing the room, while Buffett and Bon Jovi perform on stage. ;D Sanjeev would probably run wild through the room, wondering what has happened?

Well,... I guess, Sanjeev's AUM numbers are currently more accurate. Great cartoon pic,...seems to me, that Mohnish & Guy are the Muppet Show's old men from the balcony,... almost like WeB & CM. ;D

His current portfolio size is around $500M AUM, so the $1b would be his intrinsic value estimate, but not the current portfolio value. Mohnish and his family as general partners own about 10% of these AUM.

NormR's portfolio let me grin,... good choices, not only FFH, BAC, AIG, BRK,... but also specially GM & DELL... well, and of course LUK. Only some minor drawback is that he seems to use some 10/10 portfolio structure and is not weighting his bets more uneven, which would make more sense in my eyes. I myself would weight the most discounted companies extremly higher, but it seems Norm tries to comfort most G&M readers, since the most aren't probably used to portfolio volatility. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/strategy-lab/norman-rotherys-model-value-portfolio/article4547895/

You did scare me for one moment while reading this thread headline. I thought you followed in Ericopoly footsteps and put everything in one security. ;D. But that was just one flash crash of my mind while reading your headline words,... ... see you can create panics. :P ---- But great read, this article... specially the time frames of the long-lasting debt overhangs In a preliminary draft paper, “Debt Overhangs: Past and Present,” the authors concluded that since the early 1800’s, the average duration before recovery took place from a debt overhang has been about 23 years. --------------------------------------------- Now, I might add here also to this post some further interesting research paper from Carmen Reinhart & Kenneth Rogoff at Harvard University. Debt Overhangs: Past and Present Carmen M. Reinhart, Vincent R. Reinhart, Kenneth S. Rogoff Preliminary Draft April 15, 2012 - Harvard University http://www.economics.harvard.edu/files/faculty/51_Debt_Overhangs.pdf ----- Well,... Reinhard & Rogoff also wrote the best book about such debt overhangs. http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8973.html

Fairfax Case Against Morgan Keegan, Exis Dismissed http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-12/fairfax-lawsuit-against-morgan-keegan-exis-dismissed-by-judge.html The judge ruled that while “it’s clear here that there was evidence of intent to adversely affect the actual business dealings” of Fairfax, the Toronto-based company wasn’t entitled to damages under New Jersey law, according to a transcript of his Sept. 11 ruling How Fairfax's $6 bln claim against hedge funds dwindled and died http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/ViewNews.aspx?id=56923&terms=%40ReutersTopicCodes+CONTAINS+'ANV'

Charlie took out a loan to buy British Columbia Power bonds and invested everything he had in it. In the low millions, I believe. Discussed in Alice's book. Actually it was British Columbia Power, selling for $19/share and being taken over by the Canadian government at $22/share,... so for this merger arb, Munger borrowed $3million to leverage up his returns on this “sure thing”.

The second concern is that by funneling $40bn per month behind the dam, the Fed has increased the chance of an eventual burst— and the flood that will follow will inevitably be bigger. We cannot know when this will happen and what exact form it will take. What we do know is that it will mean higher inflation, demanding interest rate increases. As a result, we would be wary of any investment predicated on 0% interest rates through 2015. ------ At least good for banks such as BofA, while they will get widening interest spreads.

Truly sad outcome currently,... but I guess it's impossible to predict how a case runs,... some form of drunkard's walk. I have read in some legal advice magazine about some dispute of increased monthly rents in some apartment building after a major renovation project of the entire building. The legal advisors weren't themself sure in this complicated case, so what did happen with these 36 tenants: ...about 11 (or ~1/3) moved out, because they couldn' afford the higher rent and legal costs, ...about another 13 (~ 1/3 of the tenants) were financially well off or careless,... they blindly paid the higher rent. ...well, but now comes the rest,... the remaining 12 tenants (1/3), that had a lawyer. They had 12 individual lawyers,... and here comes the drunkard's walk !!! These remaining 12 tenants negotiated all individually their rental disputes. As a side note, around that time there was some major legal change in public tenant law enacted. So what did happen to those 12 legal cases. About 5 lost the case, 4 won it right out, and the remaining 3 tenants after some second attempt of legal wrangle, because the landlords lawyers made some deadline filing mistakes. So legal cases can be some drunkard's walk of a butterfly in chaos theory and totally unpredictable. It not depends on who is truly right or wrong, but rather on legal mistakes on the sidelines or filing deadlines.