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He mentioned in a recent interview that he did not want to expound on what had changed in his mind to make him bullish on Airlines. The implication in his tone was that he was still buying shares and had no interest in adding to a 'Buffett Premium' halo-effect around airline stock prices. As Charlie has confirmed, it is a lot like the Freight Rail business - over time, through consolidation, a "rationalization" occurs when you get an oligopoly. A bad business can turn OK when it consolidates into a rational oligopoly. Warren may still be buying airline equity - and it may ultimately turn out like the Freight Rail basket, with Berkshire owning 100% of one the the major US airlines and selling the rest of the basket to satisfy merger conditions / help pay for the acquisition. Less likely than the BNSF deal, but not all that crazy.

He has finally moved his cash to Treasury bills. There is finally some yield there - http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickchart.asp?symb=IRX&insttype=&freq=2&show=&time=12

Marlin, I know you are quite knowledgeable about Buffett and his family. But you are wrong on this one. Warren and Susie even made comments to the Wall St. Journal in connection with the listing. They owned more than 1 property in the neighborhood. http://www.villarealestate.com/listing/lg16746519-27-emerald-bay-laguna-beach-ca-92651/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/warren-buffett-lists-longtime-laguna-beach-home-for-11-million-1487344530?tesla=y

We don't know Schloss's net worth at it's high, but I don't think he was close to Charlie. Charlie had billions of dollars - plural - Schloss had millions of dollars. Maybe several hundred million, but nothing close to Charlie to my knowledge. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0211/048.html

They owned two properties adjacent to each other. The one sold previously is the neighboring property. I'm confused - is this fake news? I just found this article that states the home was sold in 2005 for 5.45 mil http://la.curbed.com/2011/10/10/10435130/laguna-beach-buyers-selling-warren-buffett-house-at-a-loss

Yeah, they (Warren & Charlie) will both contradict themselves in different contexts to different audiences from time to time. The context at the meeting was him discussing if he was 'securely wealthy' with only three large block investments (one dominates the others obviously). He was answering the question for himself - "yes, you are damn right I am securely wealthy with three." Somebody else, with a different skill set and a different three investments would likely not be "safe" with that level of concentration. I do it with Berkshire all the time, though. Berkshire is uniquely well suited to becoming a large stable core of a portfolio. It is easy to value and unlikely to decline by more than 50% or so. It tends not to be sold to preserve the tax deferral, so the positions get large over time. What do you mean by "Also Schloss was highly diversified and seems to have created even more wealth"? Yes he was very diversified, as was Graham-Newman, but created more wealth than who? Charlie's approach? Warren's approach? Or are you just saying Schloss created more even more wealth than Schloss had earlier

Financial Times has a nice behind the scenes article on what just happened with Unilever - (free to read for non-subscribers through CNBC) http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/22/the-143bn-flop-how-warren-buffett-and-3g-lost-unilever.html

Interesting - Insurance Insider has the competing offer at $1.30, rather than $1.21. ------------ Suncorp challenges Fairfax for Tower Laura Board Suncorp subsidiary Vero has made a competing bid of NZ$1.30 ($0.93) a share for 100 percent of New Zealand insurer Tower, less than two weeks after Tower accepted a NZ$1.17 offer from Fairfax Financial. Tower said in a press release earlier today that Suncorp had initially sought to buy up to 19.99 percent of the New Zealand carrier, with a view to escalate that to 100 percent of the shares. "Tower and its advisers are considering the Suncorp proposal, and working through obligations with respect to the Scheme Implementation Agreement with Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited," said Tower. It promised a market update on material developments "as they occur" and advised shareholders in the meantime to take no action "without carefully assessing all available information and seeking their own professional advice". Fairfax made its acquisition offer on 9 February, announcing that it had been unanimously supported by the Tower board and that it had the backing of Salt Funds Management and ACC, which collectively own 18.1 percent of Tower's stock. Shareholders were expected to vote on the Fairfax proposal in April, with completion envisaged at the end of June. The approach followed Tower's announcement in November that it would spin off claims at its Canterbury unit into a company dubbed RunOff Co. Chairman Michael Stiassny has said Tower would revive its spin-off plan if the Fairfax proposal collapses. Tower offers car, house, contents, business, travel and other personal insurance lines in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. It is listed in New Zealand - where it is the number three insurer - and in Australia. It made a loss of NZ$21.5mn in the year ended 30 September, in part because of provisions for Canterbury earthquake claims. Tower stock closed up 16.7 percent at NZ$1.33 in New Zealand and rose 17.5 percent to A$1.24 in Sydney today.

The Economist's blog has a nice graphic display of 3G's companies and their profit margins over time, vs. peers, etc.. http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/02/daily-chart-17

Well here's a thread I can get behind on a market holiday. We have an 11 year old Flat Coated Retriever, black color, very pretty. Her name is Cheech. We had a male German Shepherd mix, Ollie, who lived to over 15 years old but passed away last year. Not sure his precise age as he was given to us without that information. Had a nice long life. Also adopted a blond haired caucasian Mexican boy (human) at 15 years old recently, he turns 17 in March. It's been interesting to say the least. In general I will give this advice - don't adopt a teenager!

Well that's one way to win in mayonnaise... Definitely a role for Berkshire to play in a deal this size - and if the structure results in Berkshire going below the threshold for Equity Method accounting of KHC it would bump Berkshire's reported book value and buyback threshold's by a bit. Will be interesting to watch

Obviously that point of view exists in the United States, but I do believe - and correct me if I am wrong - that Scott Hall is 'in character'... Why are so many American's utterly incapable of grasping the 1st Amendment?

Here's an article that discusses some of Clayton's recent acquisitions - they've basically hit a wall in terms of manufactured home market share so have been diversifying into site-built communities... Hope it goes well for them - http://www.builderonline.com/builder-100/strategy/why-sell-to-clayton_o And another on Homeservices' growing title insurance business http://westfaironline.com/85707/homeservices-of-america-adds-houlihan-lawrences-title-agency/

Bloomberg has a piece on Berkshire's recent airline buys this morning - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-06/berkshire-s-airline-bet-said-to-stem-from-faith-in-parker-s-call

GSE's would be a good guess

We pretty much know that it is in fact a basket of 4 airline stocks - DAL, AAL, UAL and LUV. More WFC isn't possible yet. More PSX would have been disclosed a few days after each trade.

Wonder if he's including the Dow common in that number. Also wonder if he's been liquidating the Dow common edit: Seems pretty clear from the latest Charlie Rose interview that he has continued adding to a multi billion dollar basket of the major airlines' stocks. Warren's decision with color from Ted and Charlie it sounded like. Will be interesting if this basket ends up like the original railroad basket did... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-31/buffett-bought-12-billion-of-stock-from-election-through-friday

OMERS announcement is official - http://s1.q4cdn.com/579586326/files/newsletters/PRFFH-Jan-27-2017-OMERS-Commits-to-Invest-US$1-Billion-in-Allied-World-Transaction-with-Fairfax.pdf

I used one called 'pass the 65' but I think this is basically the same for the 66 - by robert walker: https://www.amazon.com/Pass-66-Plain-English-Explanation/dp/0983141185/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485363426&sr=8-1&keywords=series+66

don't buy equities - FFH or otherwise - if what you want is cash. There is no substitute for liquid cash if that's what you're wanting. If you like FFH at these prices and want to make an investment with risk assets you don't want in cash, it's probably not a bad time to add. But don't think of it as a cash substitute - think of it as an investment in an insurance company's equity. Contrary to a lot of the talk on this board, I have recently been purchasing Fairfax shares - on each of the 3 recent dips. I like it - but you can read plenty here on the board about the reasons others have soured on it recently.

The float will be in the $9.x Billion area. Not sure how the structure of the collateral trust account influences the accounting, but the premium is upfront and the capital is being transferred to Berkshire. Ajit hung out with Warren last night in NYC for his movie premier - I'm sure they were quite pleased to announce such a huge deal together. AIG had to start playing nice with BRK after their employee poaching dust-up because they realized they needed BRK to do these legacy deals with

AIG strikes $34bn legacy deal with Berkshire Hathaway Matthew Neill AIG has agreed the biggest legacy deal in the history of the P&C insurance market, with Berkshire Hathaway set to take on 80 percent of the risk on $34bn of the insurer's US commercial reserves. Ajit Jain's National Indemnity Company (Nico) will assume 80 percent of the net losses and net allocated loss adjustment expenses on the reserves of the first $25bn for the 2015 accident year and prior. Nico's liability is capped at $20bn. The $9.8bn consideration is payable in full by 30 June with interest at 4 percent per annum from the 1 January 2016 inception date until the payment date. The payment will be placed into a collateral trust account as security for Nico's payment obligations to the AIG operating subsidiaries. AIG will retain sole claims handling and resolution authority, while Nico will be granted various access, association and consultation rights. AIG said the agreement will be accounted for in the first quarter of this year as a retroactive reinsurance agreement. The carrier said if the agreement had been entered into on 1 January 2016 it would have recognised a loss of approximately $2.9bn based on carrier reserves of $34bn. AIG president and CEO Peter Hancock commented: "This decisive step enables us to focus firmly on the future and build on the progress we've made in transforming AIG. "The agreement supports our stated strategy and gives us additional risk capacity to serve our clients and return capital to shareholders." AIG has targeted $25bn of capital return in 2016 and 2017 as part of a broader plan to turn the business around. The New York-listed insurance giant said that it expected to disclose a material reserve charge in its forthcoming fourth quarter results. AIG said that it had signed a binding term sheet related to the adverse development cover, but that closing was subject to receipt of regulatory approvals, execution of definitive transactions documentation and other conditions. TigerRisk is understood to have advised on the deal.

Private placement sounded like new shares to me - is it written somewhere that new shares can't be issued? Anyone have a guess at who was selling? Just trying to understand the significance of the money moving around here since new shares can't be issued.

For what it's worth there is a similar / complimentary business that is blowing up big for one of my neighbors - turn key management of airbnb rentals for absentee owners - labor is same as a maid business and they charge more. Not sure if your market is big on airbnb but New Orleans (where I live) has had a huge airbnb phenomenon the last few years. Managing them looks like a nice business - either that or my neighbor is drastically outspending his income on automobiles!

Mars is very large and doesn't appear to be interested in selling out anytime soon (just announced a $7.7B acquisition and recently bought out BRK on Wrigley) - but I don't think tobacco has anything to do with why it may or may not be a "no-go". McLane is a huge distributor of Tobacco products - I don't think diversified distributors are "no go's" just because they happen to distribute tobacco products to retailers. There are a lot of very large private companies globally, which is why Warren is trying to raise BRK's profile abroad - especially in Germany with the Motorcycle Accessories retailer. Not a 'fit' for BRK, but good marketing to get him on private companies' radar screens.