dwy000

easiest way to think of it is if every shareholder was in a DRIP. For newly issued shares the right side of the balance sheet is unchanged but the share count increases (equity reduced by dividend and increased same amount by newly issued shares). It's basically a stock dividend and is dilution for everyone. I think generally DRIP's are so small relative to shareholders taking cash it doesn't matter much.

C'mon man, give some context. Where is this?

It's not actual cash funded. It's the value of weapons, most of which are dated and simply sitting in an aging stockpile.

I've taken a bunch of these (including for MBA and after). By FAR the best and most effective part of them is not the teaching per se but the discussion and interaction. More learning comes from the other students and the prof reacting than anything you can read or watch. It's kind of like this board. Regardless of your view on a stock (or issue) you will learn more about it, the industry, your thesis and you will ultimately understand it better by discussing and disagreeing than anything you can watch or read on your own.

This was really interesting (something I never thought I'd say about insurance!!). Two questions came up reading it: a) if the broker "has the pen", who is doing the actuarial work? It seems the broker can just underpriced non-standard risk to win business. How does the risk taking company control the pen if it's not off the shelf stuff? B) on the wholesale, who is taking the risk and doing the pricing while the book builds to something big enough to pass along as wholesale? And if they aren't standard risks how are they grouped and packaged as wholesale? It feels like a fine line between wholesaling and actually being an insurance company that can hang onto risk to make the quarter if necessary. Thanks as always!

LTI - absolutely love your insider insights into this industry. Worth it's weight in gold. Please keep it up!!

If he was really a Goldman employee I'm not sure he'd be bitching about $50.

That gets a lot of people! The reality is that you will almost never need or use that extreme acceleration and while it's fun as hell, after a couple of weeks it's just the expensive car in the driveway. Lots of reasons to go electric if you buy a car but don't do it for the acceleration

It implies consistent long term growth but id suspect a lot of the gains for many of these were in a single 3-5 year span. I'm too lazy to research it but I wonder how many are on the 10 and 20 year list solely based on performance in the past 5 years.

And she will market the crap out of that gain even though it is only because she dropped massively last year and its a small rebound. I don't think she is breakeven on the money she has raised to date. But she will definitely market it like a 48% gain is a huge win not a dead cat bounce.

I don't know, that could be a factor but it could also be that with most work now done from home or isolated in front of a screen, the after work social part is more important. There aren't too many large cities in the US that are shrinking and rent seems to continue going up everywhere. The dynamic of living in the city and enjoying the social aspects while you are young and single, then moving to the burbs or more rural when you settle down and have kids, seems to be continuing. What will be interesting is to see how the rapid decline in the birth rate will impact that.

I agree, they do seem to shoot themselves in the foot and are their own worst enemy a lot. Many of the laws and regulations and things they try are stupid (I thought Bloomberg's "fat tax" on sodas was the ultimate big government stupidity attempt). Huge cities do dumb things largely because they can. And it will come full circle at some point as it always has - Guiliani's crackdown on crime after the Dinkin years for example. Bloomberg tacking red tape. Etc. It's funny because when I lived there some of the older residents lamented the clean up and Disney-fying of Times Square because they thought NY was losing its grittiness and hard edge. But as a place to start a business it will always be a top draw because it is where the money and the talent accumulate. Even in WFH, the jobs, the networking, the bars and restaurants get centralized for efficiency. 25 or 30 yr old IT engineers who want to and can make an absolute fortune don't want to do it Des Moines, Iowa, they want to be where the action is. At some point the pendulum will swing back and they'll loosen up the dumb rules and reduce the tax burden but it will take a while.

I'm not sure how you compare if you don't use statistics. Certainly homicides dont go underreported (you would hope). From the latest comparable stats (2021), NYC's homicide rate of 5.8 murders per 100,000 residents is way, way less than other large cities: Chicago (30), Houston (20), Miami (10.7), Oklahoma City (12), LA (10). Property crimes were 757 vs Miami at 3,716. These could all be worse now than 2021 of course. I think NYC feels worse because of how dense it is. Other cities have violent pockets and you can pretty much live in that city without ever feeling unsafe but in NY it's so dense it's harder to avoid even though its safter.

Crime wise it is WAY better than almost any point in the past 50 years. Of course there's drugs and homeless etc but you're gonna get that in a city with 18mn people. There isn't a city without it. But NYC is also the center of the world for finance, art, theater, advertising, sports etc. That's the attraction. All the great things about Florida, Charlotte, Reno etc are what you look for AFTER you leave NYC. Or where you go for a week to relax. Nobody goes to NYC to relax or get the early bird special at TGIFriday. That's the appeal when you're young.

But that's what it has been for 50 years and likely will continue to be. Young people move in trying to make it big, then 20 years later they move out and a new crew moves in. It's the same in London. I lived there for 12 years until I got married and had a kid and then moved to something more appropriate. All the things I care about now from schools to taxes to having a large master bedroom was completely irrelevant in NYC. At the time those were "old people" problems. We wanted to work our asses off, make a ton of money, get laid and have fun. That's NYC.

NYC population has increased for 3 consecutive years. Rents are ridiculously through the roof. Hotel rates are through the roof. It may not be your cup of tea but people under 50 are drawn to it like a magnet. The crowds and action and excitement that older people hate are exactly what draws the next generation crowd every year.

The reference is to NY State, not city. New York and California rely heavily upon capital gains tax and wall street income. It makes their revenues extremely volatile. With markets down last year they'll take hits to revenue this year. click on table 1 for revenues for the past 30 years. Fiscal year tax collections: 2021-2022 (ny.gov) Revenues in 2022 (based upon gains in 2021) were up 47% while the previous year was flat.

I primarily use OneDrive because you get up to 2Tb free storage if you subscribe to MS Office. It works great, seamless across all devices (even Apple ones). I'm not sure how well iCloud works on non-apple devices but I assume pretty seamlessly too.

Okay I really know nothing about the military aspect or anything here at all. But why couldn't Putin control Wagner through the checkbook? They are a private army funded by the Russian government and supplied by the Russian government. Why couldn't Putin just stop funding? Without the money to pay the soldiers and buy everything from food to ammo wouldn't Wagner Group in Russia slowly just fall apart? It's not like they have their own funding source in Rubles and access to equipment and supplies in Russia without the government support?

This was the writeup that got me interested to start with! Longterminvestor - as always, thanks for the thorough and detailed info. Great to hear from an inside expert. The part i keep struggling with is what exactly you are buying with all these mid sized businesses. As you mention, this is an elevator asset business and the best producers will go out on their own pretty easily - and probably take their best accounts with them. When they get big enough they sell out for a premium and the cycle starts over again. If you stop making acquisitions it seems the business will gradually dissipate as producers move on. Yes there is organic growth but I assume most of that is during the non-compete period and while selling owners are still engaged. Is there any benefit to the client from dealing with a BRO or an AJG instead of the smaller family firm? I would imagine definitely at the large end where you need specialization of product expertise and diversity of insurers. But it feels like there is a point where market share of the big guys caps out and the dissipation of business to the new entrants splitting out is equal to the amount of business being acquired. Is this accurate? Are we close to that point? Where does the market share of the top 10 cap out in the industry? Is this why they're all looking overseas? Thanks again for all the color!!

This is great color @longterminvestor! I'm trying to do a bit of a deeper dive on BRO and must admit all the Florida insurance stories are concerning - although I'm continuing to see it as more of a risk for property owners through premium increases than for the broker side (which actually benefits). Let's assume BRO has about 25% of revenue risk in Florida (higher than above due to the out of state initiated coverage, and probably reducing as they seem to be expanding in the UK market faster than US). What exactly is the risk here for BRO? Is it Citizen's reducing commission rates? Reduced coverage as prices grow fast? A new state funded insurer getting stood up to take on additional risk that will bypass or cut commissions from brokers like BRO? Secondly, do you have any color on the acquisition side? If BRO alone has acquired over 600 companies in the past 30 years and they are one of many acquisitive public brokers, and now private equity is scooping them up for inflated prices, what is the outlook? How many small brokers can possibly be left that are of size to warrant acquisition that moves the needle? Where are all these small firms coming from - is it brokers leaving BRO, AJG etc to go out on their own knowing they'll get bought at a premium? Would love to get more of your input. Despite my wife looking at me like I'm nuts when I say this is a really interesting industry, from an investment perspective I love these FCF, acquisitive machines that fly under the radar screen because it causes people's eyes to glaze over. Thanks!!

Just reading some of the summaries of the deal it looks like the PGA made out like a bandit. They got rid of a competitor, got rid of the litigation, got a minority partner who will put up a ton of sponsorship cash, and retain ultimate control of the sport. PGA keeps the non-profit holding company and has majority of the Board of the operating company that will run not only the PGA events but also the LIV events. I'm actually struggling to understand what LIV got out of this.

I was referring to the fact that if you can't get the savings from bundling home and auto (because you don't offer home anymore) the auto side is likely to see volumes suffer quite a bit so it's not just the one p4oduct line that will shrink. At some point you simply can't put unrealistic caps on free market participants and not see the consumer suffer.

I hope.youre not speaking from personal experience!!! With bundling savings of auto policies this would imply SF is almost pulling out of California altogether. I would guess this is a major public statement largely to pressure regulators to allow price increases.

Anyone with any understanding of 3rd grade economics knows price controls are stupid policy. Capping the price of a product who's price is rising due to limited supply only makes the problem worse. I equate it to giving an alcoholic a drink. It stops the shakes for very short time but makes the problem worse in the long run. But politicians rarely look out past the next election.