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doc75

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Everything posted by doc75

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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??
  5. Is the call over? I can't listen at the moment and am dying to know if anything at all was said about BB.
  6. 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!!!
  7. 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?
  8. 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.
  9. 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
  10. 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".
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. 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:
  14. 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.)
  15. 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.
  16. I see SLV on the CSE was up huge today. Likely not a coincidence.
  17. I'm with BMO, mostly due to inertia as opposed to loving their pricing or services. Until recently I've been pretty content with customer service . I could get through almost immediately at any time of the day. But the past few months have been unreal. Call wait times of over an hour, and numerous glitches on the platform that require a phone call to be addressed. I had one issue that required numerous conversations because they kept telling me their "fix" would be reflected the next trading day... only to find it wasn't. Minimum 4 hours on hold (in total) just to have them reinstate a symbol that disappeared from their system for no good reason. Sounds like this nonsense isn't limited to BMO.
  18. Imagine... unloading BB and buying BRK at today's prices. So simple yet so unlikely.
  19. When FFH goes ex-dividend, it *really* goes ex-dividend.
  20. doc75

    Digit

    Isn't it something like 6.7 million ALS warrants, that they got in conjunction with a preferred share purchase? (Similar to what they did with Westaim.).
  21. I've been reading them as fully as I can. The point is that the trials were, by definition, a failure -- they missed their primary endpoints. Post-hoc analysis is sketchy. They just finished their next Phase 3 enrolment. There seems to be growing buzz about tau-type drugs so I hope Dundee can sell TauRx at a reasonable (not firesale) price in the near future. I certainly don't want them to wait until the results of the trial. AD drug trials have a spectacular failure rate. Of course I'd be very happy to learn your thoughts on their trials. I'm not an expert and would be interested to hear a different perspective.
  22. DC.A is trading just under the lower end so I guess the market is expecting this to be fully subscribed around $1.40. I assume the expectation is that lots of Pref A holders will take this opportunity to jump ship. They still carry UHIC on the books at $39m (as of Q3). The assumptions behind this valuation are outlined in their financials, but it strikes me that this almost certainly a 0. Delonex is in rough shape. Warburg Pincus was trying to unload their stake in the summer. Not sure of the current state. Dundee has said they're in active discussions about selling Blue Goose and TauRX. The carrying value of Blue Goose was knocked down by $10m within the last year (Q1?) but TauRX has been carried at $41m for ages. I presume they've had some indicative bids for Blue Goose but not for the TauRX stake. In any case I expect Blue Goose to eventually sell at a 0-25% haircut to its current carrying value of $26m, and I'm skeptical they'll get anywhere close to $41m from TauRX. Frankly I wish they'd just unload TauRX at whatever price they can get before the current Phase 3 ends. I think its terminal value is 0. The chance of success in AD drugs in near 0. Reported NAV at end of Q3 was $3.36. After marking things down as I've indicated above I arrive at NAV in the $2.60-2.70 range. I support almost everything Jonathan Goodman has done since taking his turn on the family throne, including the idea of returning to their roots in mining. But it's hard to see how they'll start scale the business fast enough to cover their ongoing cash drain. They haven't articulated a plan in any detail and frankly it's not clear if they have one.
  23. Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. Parenthetical remark on merits: I didn't read the entire complaint, but the inclusion of such an obviously bogus statistical analysis leads me to believe the entire exercise was mostly theatre. I have to assume that the even the plaintiffs didn't really expect their case would be heard, despite all protestations to the contrary.
  24. I know you're a lawyer (and I'm certainly not) but you really seem to be in the minority legal opinion here and yet you're stating your position as legal fact. Are there any prominent constitutional attorneys who believed SCOTUS would or should hear this case? I've been looking for these voices and can't find them. In any case, this outcome was predicted by literally every source I could find, aside from pundits on Fox, Newsmax etc. or folks like Ted Cruz who are effectively party to the suit. Ben Ginsberg was asked if he thought SCOTUS would entertain the case and his response was "not for an instant", after which he went on to describe why they don't have standing, and why all the amici briefs and state court cases further weaken the argument for standing. Not to mention that Thomas & Alito said they wouldn't grant relief. Regarding states rights to change election laws: My understanding is that the legislatures have the authority to determine the manner in which elections are carried out (e.g. by popular vote) but it's entirely within their right to cede authority for implementation to the state electoral commissions, which were created for the express purpose of carrying out elections. I mean no disrespect to you or your opinion. I am trying to reconcile what you write as fact with everything else I've read.
  25. Amazing stuff continues to unfold at DeepMind (pardon the pun): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/nov/30/deepmind-ai-cracks-50-year-old-problem-of-biology-research
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