gfp

The profits have been cash settled periodically the entire holding period. There is no lump sum gain at the "end." What we don't know is if these gains are taxable at all. In the United States, "profits" in an issuers own stock are not taxed. Someone should ask this question at the annual meeting.

It really isn't a dressed up share repurchase unless they ask the banks to close out the swaps by delivering the shares to them when they are ready to end the trade. A share repurchase consumes cash and doesn't effect profit / loss or produce cash flow. This trade does not consume cash (when it moves in their direction), directly effects profit / loss like any other equity position, and produces cash inflows (if it moves in their direction).

Thanks - I knew you would have a useful insiders take on it. Cheers!

Yeah but because of that there are sometimes nasty contaminants mixed in that will clog a fuel filter and then you lose power to the generator. I also believe that they actually run on slightly cleaner fuel when they are in the harbors and switch to heavy fuel oil or whatever bunker fuel is when they are out at sea.

Just a hunch that bad fuel caused the problems in the first place

I would be nervous if I was the company that had just filled that ship up with fuel.

Bloomberg Businessweek has a nice long article on Michael Rubin and Fanatics today - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-03-27/how-fanatics-ceo-michael-rubin-came-to-rule-sports-trading-cards?srnd=homepage-americas

They have tried to recreate the old style of the motley fool boards. I have mostly just looked at the Berkshire Hathaway board and there are a few great posters that are not on other message boards and some old-timers I remember from back in the day. Even dealraker shows up occasionally. I usually learn something and I know a few of them. It's free, not much to lose checking it out. The individual topics besides Berkshire are mostly dead as far as I know. It is a new project so tough to get things going. It certainly isn't as active and dynamic as CoBF and most Berkshire-related topics will be covered both places pretty well.

In case folks can't read the entire transcript or have interest in the original video of the interview, someone posted the link to the entire video over on shrewdm board - https://www.ndtv.com/video/shows/ndtv-special-ndtv-profit/buffett-gives-full-freedom-to-work-ajit-jain-194567

It's getting bigger by the second Luca! But now I have FOMO because Trump's twitter thing is up more than MSTR today... There's always something...

Well james east convinced me to buy Microstrategy stock and it is already up 40%. Why do I even mess around with oil wells, student loans and hamburgers when it's this easy?

I happened upon this article and it seemed relevant to @Saluki 's thread. It's a few years old. The author of the post also authored a book on the early years of Berkshire Hathaway fwiw. He seems to collect vintage financial reports. https://mcdinvestments.substack.com/p/another-industry-on-which-berkshire

Any misconception that helps the stock trade cheaply is a help, not a hindrance. I hope for many misconceptions like "blackberry is material to fairfax" in my investments.

I don't know for certain, but I believe he is just referring to the practice of Japanese companies reporting their shares outstanding including treasury shares instead of the US practice of reporting shares outstanding net of any treasury shares the company owns but hasn't yet officially "cancelled." To get an accurate share count of a Japanese company by the US GAAP understanding you would want to net out any treasury shares (repurchased shares) if the company wasn't reporting share count both ways. Most of these companies, at least in the English filings, are showing the share count both ways and regularly updating their share repurchase activity by press release. An amusing illustration in the US would be Biglari Holdings which has an official share count (including all GAAP treasury shares the company owns in itself through LP interests) and a GAAP share count that nets out the shares the company owns in itself as treasury shares. It is a big difference in Biglari Holdings' case. Since this is unusual in the US, it causes quite a bit of confusion on what the actual market cap / valuation of the firm is.

I think no firm was willing to assist with the bond because of its size, the fact that surety bonding is not very profitable at all, and the lack of suitable collateral by the defendant. He had some brokerage collateral but pledged it to Chubb for the earlier bond. I think Greenberg was very clear that he would be willing to write the bond and ignore politics if there was suitable collateral posted. We know he wasn't just talking because he had just done it. We know Buffett would want very good collateral - T-bills to maybe a 2 year note but I would be shocked if Buffett accepted anything less secure than that for a barely profitable surety bond for a customer who has a reputation for not paying.

Thanks. That reminds me, it's time for a new Demario Davis jersey $$$

Is that like $29-30 Billion valuation or have the number of shares changed?

I wouldn't say this repurchase pace is "heavy." It will be interesting to see the split between A-shares and B-shares repurchased in the 10-Q. I think it is quite possible that Warren was offered a block of A-shares and he has shown a preference for retiring A-shares before he leaves the scene.

Yes, they have a fiduciary duty to the FFH shareholders and they made what they felt was the right long term decision. The key word is long term. You lay it out in your post.

That's true in theory but in practice it is not easy to buy $110 million worth of FIH.U shares without drastically moving the price. I think it just comes down to 'fair and friendly' and doing the right thing and it comes back around over and over when you always try to behave that way.

It's important to own the landfills - anybody can win a contract to pick up the cans but nobody is granting a permit for a new landfill. The owner of our local landfill, Fred Heebe of River Birch Landfill, is ridiculously rich. I haven't seen a comprehensive biography of Huizenga but this thirty year old article tells a lot of his life story. There is always mafia-adjacency in a business like these, at least in the early years. It's a long article. You'll have to read past the testicle twisting... https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/wayne-huizenga-the-unauthorized-biography-17392137

Thanks for sharing your work Viking. On Eurobank dividends, if we are already recognizing our entire pro-rata share of Eurobank's earnings, why would we benefit from their dividend? Cash in FFH's hands is different than cash retained at Eurobank, but it should not be double counted.

Dinar is probably talking about Fairfax India being classified as a PFIC for US-based investors. I'm not sure it still is, but Americans can hold it inside an IRA type account and avoid the hassles.

BRK proxy - https://www.sec.gov/ixviewer/ix.html?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000119312524069107/d512828ddef14a.htm

Not sure where to post this, either here or in the old Atlas thread but here is the year end 20-F from Atlas / Poseidon, which still reports to the SEC for the Fairfax shareholders who are interested: https://www.sec.gov/ixviewer/ix.html?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1794846/000162828024011260/atco-20231231.htm