Gopinath

Fairfax buys Prime Restaurants! http://www.betheboss.ca/franchise_news_december_2011/Fairfax696.cfm

What does it say about NRG Energy in this case? The company is trading for 4.2B with lot of other assets.

Has anyone looked at WHITBREAD PLC? They seem to own some interesting brands..specifically Costa!They always talk about return on capital & profitable growth..you won't hear this from many companies in the world!

Don't know the reason! http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=435666

Take a look! http://secfilings.com/searchresultswide.aspx?link=1&filingid=8143736

Here we go.. the play picks up steam with cracker barrel! http://secfilings.com/searchresultswide.aspx?link=1&filingid=8132065

Hey Sanjeev, Do you know how to participate in the new rights offerings? I am not able to get much info on this. I called them & also sent them an email about the possible way to have a participation in this. Can you help me?

More Hooters expansion! http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chanticleer-holdings-and-hooters-australia-announce-plans-for-expansion-to-campbelltown-128887538.html

thanks Parsad! I will look into it!

Hi, I have a question & I have been scratching my head to find an answer. I believe some of you can answer.. Take a company like Gaps(gps), they spent about $11B in buying back shares since 2005. But they only reduced 40% of outstanding shares(350M). The share prices only averaged around $20/share in last 8 years. By simple math, 11B will buy about 550M shares at an average $20/share. So, it means the company issued around 200M shares in 8 years? I would appreciate if someone can clarify my understanding. I pulled the above data from Morningstar. Thanks! Gopi

Anyone buying insurance(put options) for insurance companies exposure(Irene)? there may be some losses for these insurance companies..any thoughts?

Very good topic & reasoning behind the stocks!

Actually we cant learn much from so called Myron Scholes! So much for being a professor! Just listen to any others in the panel(Ackman & J.Steinberg)! Its unfortunate that they couldn't spend much time talking because of the talking head professor :-)

Thanks barminov! I will talk to my broker about the possibilities considering some strong collateral ;D

Anyone involved in securities lending(by a retail investor)? Risks & Reward?

I was just wondering how does the conglomerate companies pay taxes? Based on the earnings(accounting number) or cash flows? Is there a fundamental tax advantage with conglomerates have diverse businesses operations underneath? what is the efficient company structure in terms of building wealth/dodging taxes? Gopi

Abosolutely!

Its just too difficult for me to answer this question.. recession?? what does it even mean? global economic slowdown(GDP growth..what about the things that are conveniently not included)? Looks like nobody know that one :-)..

We have all heard about the CRM, LULU and of a couple crazy IPO's but, other than that, I see fear everywhere, not greed. It is not hard to find many really cheap stocks today. Cardboard Cardboard, I agree with you. People who are in mostly cash, what do you think its going to happen next? MSFT & CSCO are already trading less than 10 times earnings before adjusting for cash on their balance sheet.. What are your return expectations? And when are you planning to deploy? how about opportunity cost of being in cash?

Thanks misterstockwell!

Hi, What happens when I don't tender my shares in a tender offer? In this case I hold ICO & I never received any tender offer documents from my brokerage. It looks like the tender offer has been expired now. What happens now?

Almost all the agri business have very low return on capital.. We have owned few agriculture land itself not having a management(costs)..even then its pretty low return on investment because of the high price of the land(fertile) itself.. add all the management costs, not very appealing. Not sure if they change in anyway in the future..Prices of the products/productivity per acre due to fertilizers.. Interesting development to watch though!

I got my copy last night, it is awesome!

Here we go.. somehow he finds a way to get in :-) http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cca-industries-inc-announces-the-nomination-of-two-new-directors-and-the-retirement-of-two-directors-122684188.html

It looks like they are on to something, Bruce berkowitz increased his holdings in SHLD!