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These all expired worthless. Was able to get as much as $1.10 on Friday, hours before expiry.

They are both in the reinsurance industry. I doubt Charlie was buying BRK for any Munich Re look-through. As you mention, BRK may not own any Munich Re anymore. BRK's most recent European insurance investment that I can remember was a major stake in Italy's Cattolica insurance group. Charlie, Berkshire went under the 3 percent threshold on its position in Munich Re on December 16th 2015, and the stub was likely sold shortly afterwards.

Thanks to all of you - it certainly is easier to find specific bits of information you are trying to remember than it used to be

Hard to say what is better for shareholders. But Berkshire isn't going to repurchase stock aggressively unless it gets really cheap. The current plan takes in 5-10% of the average daily volume on days the stock is below a cap price. The current plan takes in 10% of ADV as a target, but actually was something like 11% on the B-shares for the 11 actual days they were active. Harder to calculate on the A-shares because they traded at a premium to the B's during the 7/7-7/24 period, and may not have had the same cap. It allows them to be active during what would otherwise be blackout periods and it accomplishes Buffett's goal of not manipulating the share price (much). If he got some big blocks of stock offered to him he would probably take them. But those seem infrequent, so this slow dribble of - at best - less than $4 Billion per quarter will probably be all we get. I estimate Q4 repurchases were somewhere between $1.5 Billion and $2.7 Billion $2 Billion and $3.5 Billion, depending on how they figure the cap price. I would expect that they continued share repurchases subsequent to quarter end as well, which we will be able to tell when they file the 10K with a share count as of mid-Feb.

Fairfax has nothing to do with it guys. Here is a primer on unsponsored ADRs https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/unsponsoredadr.asp

Channelling my inner Boilermaker and selling a few Feb 8th 2019 expiry 200 strike put contracts on BRK.B for fiddy-cent (cue stock market collapse)

Just every time the CEO talks about his exit strategy for his investment, which is practically every earnings conference call, he mentions the comps that he looks at as acquisition candidates are all valued at 3-3.2x net revenues on an enterprise value basis. He convinced Biglari to hold off on forcing the Put deal at $6 until April next year. $6 per share is $45 million. Sardar isn't a charitable guy. Here's a recent one, but there are several like this one. Also mentions by the CEO that he's not getting any younger and 'doesn't want to be hanging around this place forever.' He's old, rich, and running this company is no fun. He's going to sell it.

Yeah - who knows why people think it's worth $17 million on an exchange and $13 million over the counter, but I got really interested today. I still think this company gets sold by next April. And I think they sell it for $50 million give or take. I wonder if they will quantify how much they believe SEC reporting is costing them beyond what publishing simple financial statements on their website will cost. SG&A is $2million a quarter so there may be a material savings. I owned some going in to today at $2.20 average cost. But I own a lot more coming out of today. 7.46 million shares outstanding. CEO has a bunch of his family's capital tied up in it and is getting old and tired. Sardar's put extension buys them a bit over a year of time.

This announcement from last year discusses Ajit's unsolicited offer to take over MAC's (South Australia's Motor Insurance company) run-off book. The offer was only good on a private, exclusive, no-bid basis. Doesn't say the premium or float asset/liability transfer, but it is over $300 million, since $300m of the insurance premium paid will remain in Australia, $100m will remain for at least 5 years. https://premier.sa.gov.au/news/warren-buffett’s-berkshire-hathaway-expands-into-south-australia https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/au/news/breaking-news/berkshire-hathaway-to-manage-sas-back-book-of-ctp-claims-118716.aspx

If you liked Get Out (as I did) and Lakieith Stanfield (as I do) - he's in 'Get Out' and hilarious in 'Atlanta' - you might enjoy a movie we saw over the holidays called "Sorry to Bother You." Written and directed by Boots Riley, a first time filmmaker, it is pretty entertaining for a debut. It's not polished like 'Get Out' though. My Brother-in-law is one of those voting/nominating members for the film awards shows, so our family holidays have become a kind of mini film festival with 20-30 academy screeners to watch over a few weeks time. Really great to see stuff I wouldn't otherwise get to the theater to see.

Thanks for the post John. Always interesting to read Mr. Bloomstran's thoughts, even if dated. Takes me back to the beginning of 2016! A lovely time to be a buyer indeed. I think quite a few of us BRK-nerds were happily buying low-premium in-the-money LEAPs at the time. I guess some of you wild folks were even more aggressive.. It is odd that, even back in 2016, Bloomstran through the railroad wasn't paying out dividends to BRK, and relied on STB filings when BNSF has always filed individually with the SEC.

Funston probably convinced Sardar that he was going to sell the company by April 2020 and really didn't want to come up with the money to buy BH's shares at $6. I'm surprised Sardar agreed to it, but the implication is that they will get more than $6 when they sell. I had $6.50 penciled in as a high end in my notes, so personally I would have taken the $6 and moved along. But I guess if they are confident they will get more than $6 Sardar is willing to work with Funston for $200k... We'll see.. Maybe Funston will hire a second "millennial" to help him out. He's hilarious on the conference calls

Had to reply to this thread since my friend has decided to turn this into a little Mardi Gras side hustle business. The hottest "throw" of this year's Mardi Gras! He's selling all he can make... https://mardigraspenaltyflags.com

Charlie just dropped this same quote at the meeting. Fish where the fish are gentlemen Knowing Charlie, he’s probably thinking of ponds like China and would point out that ‘the Mungers’ have been fishing there for some time

Charlie liked it - https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-charlie-munger-calls-listen-and-learn-11548421209?mod=hp_lead_pos8

Here's a blog post with a look back on the BNSF acquisition almost 10 years ago. He's taken out over $30 Billion in tax free cash distributions (not including BNSF tax payments to parent). https://berkshirebuffettandbeyond.com/2019/01/15/10-years-since-bnsf/

Might be easier to get your fidelity account approved to purchase the Toronto shares directly vs. waiting for something to be 'fixed' on an unsponsored adr.

It was a brutal non-call but man, some of that Saints play calling at the end was killing me. Seems like we could have at least forced them to use their final time out while we still had the ball towards the end of regular play - instead a bunch of incomplete passes. And what the hell was Michael Thomas looking at when they the Rams got the interception on their ass on the ground. Thomas didn't seem aware of the ball at all. Sad end to the season, and a rough no flag - but c'mon Saints..!

Agree with a lot of what you are saying bizaro. Just today we got a review from another first time airBnB user. Shocking how many young people are still trying it for their first time. Regarding the AWS service, I'm curious if you experience the same thing I experience. I find that the databases for Hosts are really slow. Calendar, for example, seems to take forever to load - in the app and on a browser. Do you find that to be the case with Host Calendar?

Still curious on KYG. Is it K as in the common abbreviation for "contract"? Is this some type of contract that was entered into with misidentified or mistaken identity of the parties? do tell Thanks for posting this. What are KYJ And EC?

I don't even know if the numbers they throw around in public for "revenue" are their revenue cut from fees or the entire value of each booking (the vast majority of which is passed through to hosts). I am very much looking forward to seeing detailed financial statements.

Yeah, its always going to be tough. Warren will be the first to advise against selling if a family has a well run, profitable, large business with durable competitive advantage and attractive, predictable long term economics. Generation changes and liquidity needs (and sometimes capital raising needs) are the main reasons families sell. The Pritzkers had their spoiled children suing them in a public way - that helped. More and more, Berkshire will have to turn to public companies because of the need for very large companies to buy. It's hard to negotiate a purchase of a desirable public company at a sensible price. - side note: maybe a side benefit of all the giving pledge networking meetings.. It's tricky to donate at least half your family fortune if you don't create liquidity for the family enterprise

would assume EC references the Equity Committee but BG will know better

Its an American comedy movie called "City Slickers" John - Dazel references "Your One Thing" http://www.collierbiz.com/Articles/OneThingCitySlickers.htm

Here's one that would be a good fit for Berkshire - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.M._Huber_Corporation Anyone who has passed a construction site in the last decade and seen Green sheathing and black tape is seeing a very popular Huber product called the Zip system. It's an alternative to house wrap and it is very popular. They also make a very popular subfloor that we use called Advantech. It's particle board, but it has so much resin in it it basically comes out waterproof (at least for long enough to put a roof on something, which is also done with Huber decking in a rust color.