gfp

Oh wow, yeah I guess I am bigger into "micro-caps" than I realized.

For very small stuff, Tim's investor letters and fund are very good. He also posts occasionally on twitter. (He used to post on this board infrequently) The problem with a nano-cap forum is that many of these don't trade much and discussing them publicly just guarantees you will have competition on the bid. https://www.eriksencapitalmgmt.com/investor-letters https://twitter.com/eriksen_tim

https://berkshirehathaway.com/news/jan0724.pdf

Not sure what you mean here, but there isn't really much disagreement over the number the formula spits out (for the final 20%). Berkshire had it at $3.23 Billion on their most recent 10-Q and the Haslam family would be happy with that number. I think Berkshire believes, for good reason, that the EBIT that feeds into the formula that spits out the above number has been manipulated and would prefer to plug in a more normalized "un-gamed" EBIT in a year or two. That was not part of this week's scheduled trial however. The Haslam's suit was mostly just not trusting Berkshire to use the above figure from their 10-Q. They wanted to know for sure, up-front, that Berkshire was not going to try to screw them, because they are used to living in a world where everybody is trying to screw their partners. The original contract had dispute resolution protocols for dealing with disagreements over the figure. The Haslams just wanted a guarantee they would know the exact number before they made a decision to exercise their put. But there is value to putting it behind you and value to minimizing risk to Abel's and Berkshire's reputations. To Berkshire, I doubt it is predominantly about a further "unjust" $1 billion transfer to the Haslams. They already got gamed for a bigger figure than that and they knew it. Chaulk it up to character and incentives and file it with the rest of the lessons learned.

Remember that this trial was narrowly focused on the application of push-down acquisition accounting that inflated depreciation and amortization and not any of the "illicit incentive" payments. If a settlement pushes the Haslam's put exercise out a year, it gives Berkshire's side a change to put up a "clean" year of EBIT to plug into their formula. Alternatively they could have just agreed on a number to part ways permanently with the Haslams.

Yes that is a good guess and I assume it is correct.

A big annuity business like L&G with a big traditional corporate bond investment portfolio will trade in the short term with the direction of interest rates. So keep in mind your expectations for UK & US interest rates going forward.

You know that feeling when Berkshire rallies "unexplained" while the indices sell off? Not usually followed by a great time for stocks.

If you don't mind sharing, what did you do before returning to full time investing?

No clue if this New Mexico utility would be of interest to BHE, but their deal has just fallen apart and they are contiguous with BHE's western territories. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pnm-resources-announces-avangrid-termination-of-merger-agreement-schedules-financial-update-302024318.html https://www.pnmresources.com/~/media/Files/P/PNM-Resources/events-and-presentations/2023/2023 EEI Presentation.pdf

I had missed this updated BRK-Energy presentation from November and found it interesting. Good detail on what PacifiCorp plans to do to deal with wildfire risk and some good updates on BHE capital expenditures for the next couple years on slide 13 - " Berkshire Hathaway Energy and its subsidiaries will spend approximately $31.4 billion from 2023-2025 for growth and operating capital expenditures, which primarily consist of new renewable generation project expansions, new electric battery and pumped hydro storage projects, and electric transmission and distribution capital expenditures" 2023 EEI Presentation vFinal.pdf

Max has been publishing Warren's letters in book form with Warren's permission / cooperation for many years. I think Warren prefers that people read his annual letters in his own words as a complete history of Berkshire Hathaway over any of the biographies or warren buffett-way type books. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=max+olson+berkshire&crid=3P52MSQ064CP8&sprefix=max+olsen+b%2Caps%2C122&ref=nb_sb_ss_sc_1_11

This link has a long passage from the Snowball that provides some of the narrative - https://www.gurufocus.com/news/249886/seeking-wisdom-from-the-early-charlie-munger-

Oh man I really thought that was going to be a 1999 research piece but I guess you meant 2019.

Would you look at that...

I wonder if we will see this price run up in FIH was the result of Fairfax Financial using the expected cash incentive fee to acquire FIH shares in the open market. It's sort of the best of both worlds when you have a fiduciary responsibility to both FIH and FFH shareholders. You don't take the FIH incentive payment in dilutive discounted shares (good for FIH shareholders, bad for FFH shareholders) but you use the expected cash payment to acquire discounted FIH shares in the market, which doesn't dilute FIH shareholders (but is good for FFH shareholders). I suppose we would see a filing soon if this were the case. Seems like the best "fair and friendly" way to navigate the sticky situation of representing two different groups of shareholders simultaneously.

@dealraker You're alive! I was starting to worry about you after a couple of weeks with no Charlie wisdom anywhere...

So insurance companies like BRK and FFH are down presumably because high interest rates are over. Fairfax of course has locked in decent yields for 3-4 years but the average market participant isn't real up to date on Brian Bradstreet's moves. Berkshire of course hasn't locked in shit - all t-bills as far as we know.

I believe GIG had around $2 Billion USD in "float" at yearend 2022. I don't know if any portion of this was previously "counted" as Fairfax float but I doubt it.

"when painting the tape is good for shareholders" starts today (the first day of the 10-day VWAP period)

At this point it's almost like, "what stock portfolio?" A little bit of Micron and some OXY but if you don't include the stuff that isn't marked to market Fairfax has a tiny stock portfolio compared to total investments. A couple billion total or something like that?

I'm sure the short sellers don't feel like they have a "Fed Call" in their pockets to bail them out

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-13/billionaire-haslam-under-investigation-over-pilot-payments-lawyer-says?srnd=premium Billionaire Jimmy Haslam is under investigation by federal prosecutors looking into whether he offered illicit payments to executives at Pilot Travel Centers, a lawyer for the company said.

This press release from this evening seems relevant - https://www.fairfaxindia.ca/press-releases/fairfax-india-completes-acquisition-of-an-additional-7-interest-in-bangalore-international-airport-limited-2023-12-12/