Fairfax 2017

[FFHWatcher]

Sold OSTK to free up capital to buy Torstar? LOL

(I hope they eventually make us all look foolish arm chairing guessing their stock picks).

Torstar looks like one of their buy 10M shares at $10 and buy 10M more at $1. It worked at Int’l Coal. Great timing there!

[bsilly]

I looked at OSTK a couple years back but passed - so now feeling a bit foolish myself. When I checked merchandise prices I found they weren't competitive on price (at that time anyway). Patrick was talking about Block Chain which I find very interesting, but I didn't know how it would play out as a business model. Anyway - I'm not one to chase...there's a heavy so

speculative element now. Cahodes has broken ranks with the shorts & seems to have caused a bit of a panic.

 

I woud feel a lot worse if I sat in the stock for 10 years and sold out at break-even :) Oh well - they made lots more on insurance investments in Asia.

[petec]

Thanks for your responses.  I guess what I am wondering is if at the time of considering the acquisition , Prem’s team did more due diligence — are they relying on financial disclosures from AWH or did they go a step further to see if things are as wonderful as they seem to be.  Thanks

 

Well, it's impossible to know. But it would be a major dereliction of duty to make an acquisition that big without digging deep. And IIRC the CEO goes a long way back with Andy Barnard so there's a deep personal connection, which is a common thread with a lot of what Fairfax does. I think a major part of their business model is to partner with people they think are great (rather than focussing on great businesses).

 

The key metric of an insureco, I think, is how they did vs. peers rather than in absolute terms. That helps you remove the impact of soft and hard markets. AWH have created a lot of value in 13 years. My guess - strengthened by bsilly's point about their 1-in-100 estimate - is that this one quarter doesn't suddenly disprove their talent. But I may be wrong.

[chrispy]

Is there a transcript to the q3 earnings call?

[wondering]

http://www.fairfaxafrica.ca/News/Press-Releases/Press-Release-Details/2017/Fairfax-Africa-Files-Final-Universal-Shelf-Prospectus/default.aspx

 

On the same day Fairfax India announces $1.5B debt and equity offering, Fairfax Africa also announce $1B debt and equity offering.

 

I have been wanting to buy more Fairfax Africa on a dip, but the price never seems to want to go down.

[Cigarbutt]

More data points slowly emerging from catastrophe activity in 2017.

Interesting reinsurance perspective from industry players.

 

https://www.canadianunderwriter.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/CU-20171101-Digital.pdf

Relevant pages are 13-14 and 24-30.

 

As bsilly mentioned: "surprise will come later when the actual claims get settled" and there seems to be some appetite for reinsurance price increases with the coming renewal process but the "tipping point" may be further in the distance because of the continued apparent abundance of alternative/non-traditional capital.

 

 

[wondering]

It looks like the sale of First Capital will close in 2017.  This will definitely help offset a year of many expensive natural disasters.

 

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/12/13/1261426/0/en/Fairfax-and-Mitsui-Sumitomo-Insurance-Receive-All-Regulatory-Approvals-to-Complete-Sale-of-First-Capital.html

[chrispy]

Between the first capital sale, 15k buybacks a day possibly, and the current share price it looks like we are back near 1.1BV.  Am I missing anything?

[Cigarbutt]

2017 has been quite unusual in terms of catastrophe activity.

It looks like rates will go up some in "localized" markets.

Doesn't smell like a hard market.

 

http://www.swissre.com/media/news_releases/nr20171220_sigma_estimates.html

https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2017/12/20/474855.htm