Prem's thoughts on Greece and FFH's investments in Greece

[wondering]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-12/betting-on-greekovery-fairfax-s-prem-watsa-vouches-for-eurobank

[StubbleJumper]

Interesting comment:

 

Eurobank is “in a very sound financial position,” Watsa said. The lender’s shares have risen 23 percent since the e-auction, recouping a part of the losses since July when the International Monetary Fund said that Greek banks will need extra capital.

 

“For this size of bank, it’s a very low price. It has a market capitalization of 1.6 billion euros and more than 60 billion euros in assets,” the Canadian investor said.

 

 

If the 60B are actually good assets, then that bank definitely looks cheap.  A decent bank can get a normalized ROA of 0.75%, a crappy bank maybe 0.5%.  So, if normalized earnings are 300m or 450m, then the market cap of 1.6 billion is cheeeeeap.

 

thanks for sharing the article.

[thowed]

I don't know enough to have a view, but at $600m down, I think one can generally say:

 

'Well, he would say that, wouldn't he'.

[TwoCitiesCapital]

At some point and at some price, this will be a good buy. The hard part is knowing when because the value is dependent as much on government policies as it is the bank itself.

 

The last time I was in Eurobank, it basically lost 90% of its value in response to an election that resulted in deposit flight. The bank was well on its way to recovery at that point - but the election shattered everything.

 

I'm tempted to get back in at this price, and have been watching it the last few months, but also am wary given being burned on it in the past with no fault at the company. Still haven't made up my mind yet.

[wondering]

 

Appears to be a recent speech Prem gave in Greece.  Similar to the Bloomberg article, he talks about the Greek financial crises.  He also talks about the FFH culture etc...

 

To long-time attendees of FFH AGMs, there is nothing new here.