doc75

It was trading that high at the beginning of January. You can check the SEDI filings for details on the purchases. On Jan 5 they bought a block of 1.2m shares @ 12.86. There's a block trade exemption on the daily NCIB purchase limit.

Yes, Prem's rosy view of Modi is certainly at odds with much of what I've read elsewhere. But he's talking his book so I personally don't worry about the discrepancies. In general, I feel Prem's writing often makes him seem avuncular to the point of being naive, particularly over the past few years. (The exclamation points ending every second sentence don't help.) I don't believe this is fully reflective of the depth of his thinking. Buffet also has the whole "Uncle Warren" persona, but there's certainly a very shrewd businessman behind the aphorisms and platitudes. Maybe not a fair comparison but perhaps you see my point.

If I recall correctly, those pref shares came with distribution rights, which would be very lucrative should the trials succeed. So it's far from an apples-to-apples comparison with Dundee's holdings.

Refused to comment on BB, several questions on it. All shorts closed. Doesn't this seem like a completely unreasonable stance? I haven't heard the call but how can you refuse to comment on something so material to the company??

Is the call over? I can't listen at the moment and am dying to know if anything at all was said about BB.

What was said? Rough version: Called in and told him he needed to step away, he wasn't paying attention anymore, and had lost his touch. Continued by saying that Prem didn't understand any of the companies he was investing in and wasn't doing any detailed analysis on microeconomics, his partners agreed but were Canadian so too nice to tell him, and the bankers were cowards not asking hard questions because Canada doesn't have enough good companies. Sounds like Sanjeev. Kidding!!!

Regarding short exposure: It appears FFH continued to hold open short positions at Dec 31, with mark-to-market gains of $175m. Am I reading this correctly? And, if so, does it make anyone else worry about what has happened to those since Dec 31?

Not only were they able to do it, but they apparently didn't have to disclose the swap in the same way they have to disclose market purchases. Which makes me think that a TRS on Blackberry was also possible without disclosure. Time will tell.

I'm not so sure about that. It seems they triggered the early warning requirements when they bought the debentures in 2018: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/ensign-closes-second-tranche-of-private-placement-of-unsecured-subordinated-convertible-debentures-1021343959?op=1

I think this situation is a one-way street with respect to credit/reputation. Prem et al didn't foresee the WSB crowd pumping BB shares. Any gain was purely a gift and you don't get credit for accepting a gift. On the other hand, *not* pulling the trigger will certainly harm their reputation. In any case I truly hope you and Sanjeev are right that they've made a move. God knows there could be a number of things like tax optimizations that could convolute what I'm viewing as a simple case of hitting "sell".

They disclosed the Ensign TRS purchase 5 days after the initial transaction, likely because they were a 10% holder of Ensign and obliged to do so. I see no reason why the same disclosure rules wouldn't apply to direct or indirect actions with respect to BB. I think we'll either see a disclosure in the next day or two, or we'll be hearing on Feb 11 about the long-term economic value of those BB shares. Along with Wade puking in the background. I really respect Prem and know he's orders of magnitude more financially astute than me, so my fingers are crossed for a surprise extra-dimensional chess move. But if there's no pending disclosure then Occam's razor points to a dementional lack of action.

It's unclear to me from this PR exactly what this relationship entails, and it may differ a great deal from the BB offering, to the point that they may not be mutually exclusive. The BB Ivy project sounded to me more related to analytics involving sensor data as opposed to consumer-facing stuff like Maps or whatnot.

This is roughly my thinking, too --- that some mixture of economic nationalism (as you describe it) and vanity could lead to inaction with BB. By "vanity" I'm referring to Prem's apparent desire to be seen as a genius contrarian. Reminds me of this classic scene:

Would increasing the size of a short position go against Prem's "promise" to not short ever again? Or have you found him another loop hole to exploit? Prem speak knows no limits..... Didn't GME and friends start spiking very recently? Wouldn't this "one name" be more likely some high-flier like TSLA, if they've been covering and covering...? (Also bad news of course, but no GME.)

I know these things are hard to quantify, but what do you think the odds are that Fairfax monetized a significant portion of their stake? I personally think it's less than 50%, meaning I'd be unsurprised if they didn't and pleasantly surprised if they did. The entire BB investment thesis wasn't rational to begin with (IMO) so I don't put high hopes on a rational exit outside of an outright sale of the company.