Sportgamma

Guess you´re right on both BYD and FIAT: http://www.princehenrygroup.com/AR_2012.pdf In the picture, Pabrai isn´t in front of just any Ferrari...he´s standing in front of John Elkann´s Ferrari, next to John Elkann.

Hell yeah, my second largest position...behind FIAT No were talking! What price did you get in i just bought 6 weeks ago but see much more upside. Care to share your thesis? I got in at roughly €16. http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/exo-mi-exor/

Ichan doing stand-up...

Hell yeah, my second largest position...behind FIAT

Perhaps of some usefulness: from Horizon Kinetics 1Q2013 commentary

The beuty of OPAP is not that people´s gambling habits are that resilent, but the business model. Most of the costs are variable and directly linked to sales, so even if revenues would drop 50%, OPAP would still make a profit.

How would you look for a local analyst? Some freelance site or what?

I´m wandering why there isn´t any news or activity here on the annual meeting? Only thing I could find is this: http://blogs.wsj.com/canadarealtime/2013/04/11/oracle-of-toronto-still-not-ready-to-wade-back-into-stocks/?mod=yahoo_hs Also if I go to the Fairfax website I only find this: So guys, any news?

Principles for the Application of Fair Value Accounting http://www4.gsb.columbia.edu/null?&exclusive=filemgr.download&file_id=3822 Timely & True from an Owner’s View: Shareholder Value Accounting for Employee Stock Options http://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/sites/ceasa/themes/ceasa/css/files/PolicyBrief_1.pdf Timely & True from an Owner’s View: Shareholder Value Accounting for Employee Stock Options http://www.bus.iastate.edu/aclem/592/SS03/Penman.pdf Do Firms Understate Stock Option-Based Compensation Expense Disclosed under SFAS 123? http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/david.aboody/ABK_RAST_Forthcoming.pdf

Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited ("Fairfax") (FFH.TO)(TSX:FFH.U) announces the signing of an agreement with GMP Securities L.P. ("GMP"), for GMP's purchase from Fairfax of 9,897,509 common shares and 16,334,000 common share purchase warrants of Imvescor Restaurant Group Inc., representing 23.6% of the common shares of Imvescor on a non-diluted basis and 45.0% of the common shares of Imvescor if the warrants being sold were exercised. The Imvescor shares and warrants are being sold to GMP for $26.1 million. Closing of the sale is expected to occur on or about April 16, 2013. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/fairfax-sells-imvescor-securities-122100312.html

How can it be deducted from goods purchased if they are just looking?

Anybody know what the average duration on the hedges is?

Word up, brotha

http://kiddynamitesworld.com/carl-icahns-valentines-day-massacre-of-herbalife-shorts/

Interview with Jarden´s CEO Franklin: http://www.bloomberg.com/video/franklin-says-right-time-for-jarden-stock-split-KTU0~gzxS1uziRW2djlpEg.html?cmpid=yhoo

A rare interview with Ergen (64min). http://allthingsd.com/conferences/dive-into-media/livestream/?mod=atd_divemedia2013_300x100_livestreamduringpost

He isn´t saying its all luck...

Thank you for sharing! The only really interesting video I have seen from Davos so far. giofranchi “As time goes on I get more and more convinced that the right method in investment is to put fairly large sums into enterprises which one thinks one knows something about and in the management of which one thoroughly believes. It is a mistake to think that one limits one’s risk by spreading too much between enterprises about which one knows little and has no reason for special confidence.” - John Maynard Keynes Hot from the press http://www.eftacourt.int/images/uploads/16_11_PR_EN.pdf Thus, considering ESA’s self-limitation, the Court was bound to assess whether Iceland was under a specific obligation to ensure that payments were made to Icesave depositors in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. However, since the Court had already held that the Directive, even read in light of Article 4 EEA, imposes no obligation on the defendant to ensure that payments are made in accordance with the requirements of the Directive to Icesave depositors in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, it was found that such an obligation of result could only be deemed to exist if it followed directly from Article 4 EEA itself. The Court held that this is not required under the principle of non-discrimination. A specific obligation upon the defendant that would not even establish equal treatment between domestic depositors and those depositors in Landsbanki’s branches in other EEA States could not be derived from that principle. Consequently, the third plea, and the application as a whole was dismissed.

If you *must* invest in NA, and nowhere else, well, then obviously lots of FFH and cash. How about LINTA, BAM, LUK as well. Registered in NA, international exposure and has the management and cash to act if opportunities come their way.

http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4f29655eeab8ead315000022-906-509/stephanie-ruhle-paul-volcker.jpg

I personally wouldn't get too excited yet. I haven't followed the RIM story (or the RIM thread on this board) much, but does any of this price-action matter before it becomes clear whether the BB10 will sink or swim? As a distant observer, that seems to be make or break for the company. I guess it also depends on what the patents etc could reasonable be sold for (floor worst-case liquidation situation), which I have no clue. The performance of RIM is certainly debatable, as you suggested. But to me the bigger issue is that FFH does not have a viable exit strategy. Now that Prem is a RIM board member, he will be hard pressed to dump RIM shares, even if they approach a price that is near FFH's evaluation of intrinsic value. After all, what does it say about his commitment to the company if he dumps his (our!) position? If you can't sell, and they don't pay a dividend.... I beg to differ. I find it highly unlikely that Watsa, Bradstreet and Co would take such a big stake if they did not think that they had a reasonable exit strategy. Perhaps Prem entering the board will make it easier to implement a plan B if the need arises (e.g. slice and dice).

Well, when your the one paying the bills... http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/celebrity-news/who-is-the-real-mark-wahlberg/article7519422/

Hey Gio, Here´s another owner-operator who writes all the check herself: Gert Boyle of Columbia Sportswear (also found on the Wealth Index) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4u_VPAMiRY

If you tried to replicate that exercise, you would look at the S&P 500, look at all the holdings since the day it began in 1957, extract all the positions in which there were owner-operators that you could identify, and then recalculate the S&P as if there never were any owner-operators. In every time period, there would be a different number of owner-operators but, for ease of illustration, let’s just make believe that there were an average of 50 companies of this type. You’d be calculating, on average, the S&P 450 instead of the S&P 500. I absolutely promise you, if you did that calculation, you would never buy the S&P. What I’m telling you is that the bulk of the return of the indices—and not just in the United States, but in all nations, the bulk of the return was earned by these owner-operators. Why am I even studying this? I’m studying it because I have to somehow respond to the idea of indexation in a business sense. There are currents in the marketplace that are overwhelming the efforts of active managers. I began to look at the position of the owner-operators in indices, when they are included in indices, and I learned a very interesting fact, which I’ll share with you. The indices are computed differently than in the past when the market value of a company was compared to that of other companies in the index to determine its weight. It might surprise you to learn that they are now computed using what’s called a float-adjusted mechanism. Let’s define float as the number of shares not owned by the insiders of a company—these are the shares that you could theoretically buy. For the purposes of deciding a company’s weight in a given index— whether it is 1%, 2%, 3%, or another weight—the originators of the index determine the weight by comparing its float to that of the other companies in the index. To illustrate the consequences, let’s take an extreme case. It doesn’t really happen this way in real life; this is merely for illustration. Let’s say that the management members of an imaginary company are buying a lot of the company’s stock with their own money. You, the shareholder, might take comfort in that but, for the purposes of calculating the company’s weight in an index, the float would be diminishing. When the float diminishes, all things being equal (ceteris paribus, as they say in Latin) the company’s weight in the index declines proportionately. Let’s take the reverse. Let’s say the management took all their stock and sold it in the marketplace. You might take umbrage at that as a shareholder. But, from the point of view of the index, all things being equal, the company’s weight in the index goes up. What’s happening in the index? It has developed an algorithm for doing the opposite of what everyone knows is the sensible action to take. The index will buy more of a company’s stock— i.e., it will have a higher weight—when the management sells stock. The more the management sells, the higher the company’s weight, at the margin. All these events happen at the margin. Conversely, the more aggressively the management buys the stock, all things being equal, the lower its weight in the index. It’s actually astonishing. There are many more aspects of indexation that I wish I had time to cover. I could give you a very nice lecture about indexation, but I’m covering only one feature, because it’s relevant to what we’re talking about here. While studying the many facets of indexation, it occurred to me that one could create investment products that use the opposite strategy of the float-adjusted indexation trend. At Horizon Kinetics, we created an index that we call the Wealth Index (Ticker: RCH). It’s comprised of owner-operators; that is, members of the company’s management who have a very substantial portion of their own wealth invested in the company. They have freedom of action by dint of the fact that they own a lot of stock, and they have a great amount of their own capital at risk. - Murray Stahl