Fairfax stock positions

[Hoodlum]

It looks like Seaspan started doing new build contracts in RMB last fall when they signed a contract for six new builds.

 

https://www.imarinenews.com/15485.html

 

Quote

It is worth mentioning that this order will be settled in RMB, which is one of the few large shipbuilding order signed by foreign shipowners directly with Chinese shipbuilders by this new payment method so far.
 

Meanwhile, the adoption of RMB settlement will help Hudong-Zhonghua to reduce exchange risk, enhance profitability and market competitiveness, as well as help the ship owner to reduce financing cost and improve trade efficiency.

 

Edited August 18, 2025 by Hoodlum

[Viking]

Fairfax's equity portfolio is under appreciated. Below is a list of the top 20 holdings. The performance of the largest publicly traded holdings has been exceptional (over both the past 6 months and 5 years).

 

The 'share price total return' has not been adjusted for currency (it is the change in the share price in local currency). It also does not include any dividends paid. And it does not incorporate when Fairfax added to a position (or started their position, in the case of Orla). So it does not tell us precisely what Fairfax has earned on each of their equity investments over the past 5 years. 

 

I included the 'share price total return' in the chart to provide a summary of how the stock price of each of Fairfax's largest equity holdings has performed over the past 6 month and 5-year time periods. Every holding is up significantly. At a very high level, I think that tells us something about Fairfax and how well they are managing the equities in their investment portfolio. Which also helps us understand / gives us some confidence of what might happen in the coming years.

Edited August 20, 2025 by Viking

[73 Reds]

3 hours ago, Viking said:

Fairfax's equity portfolio is under appreciated. Below is a list of the top 20 holdings. The performance of the largest publicly traded holdings has been exceptional (over both the past 6 months and 5 years).

 

The 'share price total return' has not been adjusted for currency (it is the change in the share price in local currency). It also does not include any dividends paid. And it does not incorporate when Fairfax added to a position (or started their position, in the case of Orla). So it does not tell us precisely what Fairfax has earned on each of their equity investments over the past 5 years. 

 

I included the 'share price total return' in the chart to provide a summary of how the stock price of each of Fairfax's largest equity holdings has performed over the past 6 month and 5-year time periods. Every holding is up significantly. At a very high level, I think that tells us something about Fairfax and how well they are managing the equities in their investment portfolio. Which also helps us understand / gives us some confidence of what might happen in the coming years.

Viking, that chart fits into the category of "a picture is worth 1000 words".   Truly remarkable performance of Fairfax's largest public companies.  The only reason to be skeptical is if you believe the performance was due to luck rather than skill.   Or if you think great management provides no moat like a certain stock analyst.

[Viking]

5 hours ago, 73 Reds said:

Viking, that chart fits into the category of "a picture is worth 1000 words".   Truly remarkable performance of Fairfax's largest public companies.  The only reason to be skeptical is if you believe the performance was due to luck rather than skill.   Or if you think great management provides no moat like a certain stock analyst.

@73 Reds, what jumped out at me is how well EVERY large publicly traded holding is doing. Over a very long time horizon (5 years). That tells me it's not luck - their hit rate is too high (every holding) and the time-frame is too long (5 years). 

 

I like Munger’s idea of inverting. Many investors didn’t want to own Fairfax in the past because the equity portfolio was underperforming (I put the equity hedges/shorts in this bucket). That was fact based. Made sense.

Today some investors don’t want to own Fairfax because they don’t believe the outstanding performance they are delivering is real (you pick the reason why it is not real). IMHO, this is not fact based. Makes no sense.
 

The end result is Fairfax gets penalized by investors when they are performing poorly. And when they are performing at a high level. It is a great example of what messes lots of investors up - it's the face they see when they look in the mirror. 

[Viking]

6 hours ago, 73 Reds said:

Viking, that chart fits into the category of "a picture is worth 1000 words".  

@73 Reds, yes, there are so many interesting storylines that jump out of the chart.

• One for me is the number of private holdings (10 of the top 20), and what that means for Fairfax moving forward. Business model. Accounting treatment. Etc.
• Another is Fairfax India - it had the lowest ‘share price total return’ over the past 5 years of the large publicly traded companies at 121%. But this increase is likely materially understating the value that has been building in Fairfax India over the past 5 years in BIAL. We will find out when the airport is IPO’d, likely via Anchorage. 
• The crazy growth of Eurobank. It has becoming a monster holding.
• The future of the FFH-TRS position. It has also become a very big holding - despite the fact the position was reduced in size at the end of 2024. 
• How excess of FV over CV is spiking for associate and consolidated holdings.

I could go on…

Edited August 21, 2025 by Viking

[73 Reds]

7 hours ago, Viking said:

@73 Reds, yes, there are so many interesting storylines that jump out of the chart.

• One for me is the number of private holdings (10 of the top 20), and what that means for Fairfax moving forward. Business model. Accounting treatment. Etc.
• Another is Fairfax India - it had the lowest ‘share price total return’ over the past 5 years of the large publicly traded companies at 121%. But this increase is likely materially understating the value that has been building in Fairfax India over the past 5 years in BIAL. We will find out when the airport is IPO’d, likely via Anchorage. 
• The crazy growth of Eurobank. It has becoming a monster holding.
• The future of the FFH-TRS position. It has also become a very big holding - despite the fact the position was reduced in size at the end of 2024. 
• How excess of FV over CV is spiking for associate and consolidated holdings.

I could go on…

One of the appeals of Fairfax to me is that the company still remains largely under the radar.  Despite the last 5 years of performance relatively few people have even heard of them.  This enables them to operate like a privately-owned family business without the outside pressures of "analysts' expectations".  People who focus on all the usual valuation metrics and estimates will continue to ignore Fairfax, while those of us who want to own a piece of a business that continues to execute and grow value at nothing short of an astonishing rate will be very happy in the years (and hopefully decades)  to come.    

[dartmonkey]

18 hours ago, Viking said:

Fairfax's equity portfolio is under appreciated. Below is a list of the top 20 holdings. The performance of the largest publicly traded holdings has been exceptional (over both the past 6 months and 5 years).

 

The 'share price total return' has not been adjusted for currency (it is the change in the share price in local currency). It also does not include any dividends paid. And it does not incorporate when Fairfax added to a position (or started their position, in the case of Orla). So it does not tell us precisely what Fairfax has earned on each of their equity investments over the past 5 years. 

 

I included the 'share price total return' in the chart to provide a summary of how the stock price of each of Fairfax's largest equity holdings has performed over the past 6 month and 5-year time periods. Every holding is up significantly. At a very high level, I think that tells us something about Fairfax and how well they are managing the equities in their investment portfolio. Which also helps us understand / gives us some confidence of what might happen in the coming years.

Those results are impressive, but to play the devil's advocate, I think it's worth pointing out that the logic of the table, ranking investments according to their present value, tends to favour the investments that have done well and not the ones that have done poorly. For intance, if they had made a $1b investment in company DogCo (aka Blackberry), and it had gone to $150m in the last 5 years, it would not appear in the chart, whereas the company StarCo that went from $100m to $1b would appear towards the top, and the conclusion would be that all the big investments have done well in the last 5 years.

 

As a reminder of the Blackberry story, they accumulated a 10% stake by 2013 for about $1b (does any have the exact price ?) and then offered $4.7b for the rest, an attempt which, thank God, was not successful. But they did invest another $1b in convertible debentures, which give them the right to purchase another big chunk of the company at $10 a share. Some shares were sold in 2013, and the debentures were converted in 2020, so the current arrangement is that they could acquire at $6 a share. At the current Blackberry share price of $3.60, those obviously don't have a lot of value. I do not have the patience to go over all the money Fairfax has invested in this sad story, but $1b going to $150-200m seems like a reasonable approximation, and would put the current value of the Blackberry stake outside the top 20, but clearly a very bad return for shareholders of a big investment. 

[73 Reds]

9 minutes ago, dartmonkey said:

Those results are impressive, but to play the devil's advocate, I think it's worth pointing out that the logic of the table, ranking investments according to their present value, tends to favour the investments that have done well and not the ones that have done poorly. For intance, if they had made a $1b investment in company DogCo (aka Blackberry), and it had gone to $150m in the last 5 years, it would not appear in the chart, whereas the company StarCo that went from $100m to $1b would appear towards the top, and the conclusion would be that all the big investments have done well in the last 5 years.

 

As a reminder of the Blackberry story, they accumulated a 10% stake by 2013 for about $1b (does any have the exact price ?) and then offered $4.7b for the rest, an attempt which, thank God, was not successful. But they did invest another $1b in convertible debentures, which give them the right to purchase another big chunk of the company at $10 a share. Some shares were sold in 2013, and the debentures were converted in 2020, so the current arrangement is that they could acquire at $6 a share. At the current Blackberry share price of $3.60, those obviously don't have a lot of value. I do not have the patience to go over all the money Fairfax has invested in this sad story, but $1b going to $150-200m seems like a reasonable approximation, and would put the current value of the Blackberry stake outside the top 20, but clearly a very bad return for shareholders of a big investment. 

BB was not the only poor investment decision from that time period.  Yet it is hard to argue with 18%+annual BV growth over their entire history, even with those bad investments.  And it is also hard to come up with another insurance company where <CR 100 is naturally "assumed" because of underwriting discipline.  

Edited August 21, 2025 by 73 Reds
spelling, word

[netcash1]

Go Digit Life Insurance is small but gaining market share fast.  Hidden gem under the hood.

[Txvestor]

1 hour ago, dartmonkey said:

Those results are impressive, but to play the devil's advocate, I think it's worth pointing out that the logic of the table, ranking investments according to their present value, tends to favour the investments that have done well and not the ones that have done poorly. For intance, if they had made a $1b investment in company DogCo (aka Blackberry), and it had gone to $150m in the last 5 years, it would not appear in the chart, whereas the company StarCo that went from $100m to $1b would appear towards the top, and the conclusion would be that all the big investments have done well in the last 5 years.

 

As a reminder of the Blackberry story, they accumulated a 10% stake by 2013 for about $1b (does any have the exact price ?) and then offered $4.7b for the rest, an attempt which, thank God, was not successful. But they did invest another $1b in convertible debentures, which give them the right to purchase another big chunk of the company at $10 a share. Some shares were sold in 2013, and the debentures were converted in 2020, so the current arrangement is that they could acquire at $6 a share. At the current Blackberry share price of $3.60, those obviously don't have a lot of value. I do not have the patience to go over all the money Fairfax has invested in this sad story, but $1b going to $150-200m seems like a reasonable approximation, and would put the current value of the Blackberry stake outside the top 20, but clearly a very bad return for shareholders of a big investment. 

There were others too like Sandridge energy, APR energy etc. That was a particularly bad period as not only did the investments do poorly, their market hedges and deflation hedges also went poorly and they completely missed the tech run up. 
So the opportunity cost was on top of the economic loss. 
I think this particularly horrible period of investments which ended around trumps 1st term, that has anchored many investors anchored to a negative narrative on this investment. 

Edited August 21, 2025 by Txvestor

[Txvestor]

16 hours ago, Viking said:

@73 Reds, yes, there are so many interesting storylines that jump out of the chart.

• One for me is the number of private holdings (10 of the top 20), and what that means for Fairfax moving forward. Business model. Accounting treatment. Etc.
• Another is Fairfax India - it had the lowest ‘share price total return’ over the past 5 years of the large publicly traded companies at 121%. But this increase is likely materially understating the value that has been building in Fairfax India over the past 5 years in BIAL. We will find out when the airport is IPO’d, likely via Anchorage. 
• The crazy growth of Eurobank. It has becoming a monster holding.
• The future of the FFH-TRS position. It has also become a very big holding - despite the fact the position was reduced in size at the end of 2024. 
• How excess of FV over CV is spiking for associate and consolidated holdings.

I could go on…

There is at least $7.5 billion initial investment there that has not been marked to market. And that's in addition to the 2.5 billion of unrealized gains they have reported. And to think the short seller thought at a share price of $1100 they were propping up valuations! They have done far better in the private equity space than in the public markets, generally speaking.
 

Edited August 21, 2025 by Txvestor

[dartmonkey]

41 minutes ago, netcash1 said:

Go Digit Life Insurance is small but gaining market share fast.  Hidden gem under the hood.

Yes, Go Digit General Insurance Limited (aka Digit Insurance, which owns Go Digit Life Insurance, a much smaller company) is worth close to $4b, so Fairfax's 49% stake (making it an equity-accounted associate) is worth close to $2b, if it were marked to market, putting it at #3 or #4 in terms of Fairfax's equity holdings. 

Edited August 21, 2025 by dartmonkey

[netcash1]

I think Go Digit Life is a different legal entity than Go Digit.

[dartmonkey]

1 hour ago, 73 Reds said:

BB was not the only poor investment decision from that time period.  Yet it is hard to argue with 18%+annual BV growth over their entire history, even with those bad investments.

Yes, I certainly agree, but if we're looking at recent results, say in the last 10 years, we should make sure we include the good and the bad, so if we just look at the investments that are worth the most right now, we miss on the bad investments that were big when they were made and have only become small now because of their bad performance (or because they were liquidated at a loss.)

 

If you look at per share book value growth in the 10.5 y since the end of 2014, it is really a tale of two periods, a terrible first 5 years and a great subsequent 5-5.5 years. So ignoring the dividend ($10/y dividend, $15 in the last 2 years), book value per share went up 4.2% from the end of 2014 to the end of 2019, and then 16.9% from the end of 2019 to the end of 2024 (or 17.1% to the end of Q2 2025). Adjusted for the value of the dividends would add about another 2% to that, but results from 2015 to 2020 were still pretty bad, for a variety of reasons (BB, APR, Sandridge, hedges, soft insurance market, low interest rates) and great since then. It's encouraging to see those recent results return to the long term 18% average, and hopefully they will continue, but we should acknowledge that the company went through a very bad period not so long ago.

[Crip1]

4 hours ago, 73 Reds said:

One of the appeals of Fairfax to me is that the company still remains largely under the radar.  Despite the last 5 years of performance relatively few people have even heard of them.  This enables them to operate like a privately-owned family business without the outside pressures of "analysts' expectations".  People who focus on all the usual valuation metrics and estimates will continue to ignore Fairfax, while those of us who want to own a piece of a business that continues to execute and grow value at nothing short of an astonishing rate will be very happy in the years (and hopefully decades)  to come.    

Agree with this all the way around. If Fairfax ever becomes “popular” we can see the Price/Book rise to 2x or more, and that would at least compel me to think about selling a portion. Sitting at 1.5x, I don’t give selling any thought. If we do sit at 1.5x for a company that can compound at 15% for a decade or two, life will be good.

 

-Crip

[Junior R]

1 hour ago, Crip1 said:

Agree with this all the way around. If Fairfax ever becomes “popular” we can see the Price/Book rise to 2x or more, and that would at least compel me to think about selling a portion. Sitting at 1.5x, I don’t give selling any thought. If we do sit at 1.5x for a company that can compound at 15% for a decade or two, life will be good.

 

-Crip

not saying to do this ...but on tsx to get a high multiple your div yield has to be over 2%...

[villainx]

45 minutes ago, Junior R said:

but on tsx to get a high multiple your div yield has to be over 2%...

even better reason to stay off that radar!

 

 

[Viking]

7 hours ago, dartmonkey said:

Those results are impressive, but to play the devil's advocate, I think it's worth pointing out that the logic of the table, ranking investments according to their present value, tends to favour the investments that have done well and not the ones that have done poorly. For intance, if they had made a $1b investment in company DogCo (aka Blackberry), and it had gone to $150m in the last 5 years, it would not appear in the chart, whereas the company StarCo that went from $100m to $1b would appear towards the top, and the conclusion would be that all the big investments have done well in the last 5 years.

 

As a reminder of the Blackberry story, they accumulated a 10% stake by 2013 for about $1b (does any have the exact price ?) and then offered $4.7b for the rest, an attempt which, thank God, was not successful. But they did invest another $1b in convertible debentures, which give them the right to purchase another big chunk of the company at $10 a share. Some shares were sold in 2013, and the debentures were converted in 2020, so the current arrangement is that they could acquire at $6 a share. At the current Blackberry share price of $3.60, those obviously don't have a lot of value. I do not have the patience to go over all the money Fairfax has invested in this sad story, but $1b going to $150-200m seems like a reasonable approximation, and would put the current value of the Blackberry stake outside the top 20, but clearly a very bad return for shareholders of a big investment. 

@dartmonkey, I am not following your logic. My chart was a summary of the change in the share price over the past 5 years of Fairfax’s large publicly traded equity holdings. I didn’t include sales like Stelco and Resolute Forest Products, both of which were exceptionally well timed and delivered significant value to shareholders. 
 

What are the equity decisions that Fairfax has made over the past 5 years that have not worked out? I mean big ones. I can’t think of any. 
 

Perhaps the one example I can think of is perhaps Fairfax took too long to fully exit the losers (APR, Farmers Edge, Boat Rocker etc). Fairfax has booked significant losses from 2020 to 2025 with this group of holdings. But I like that they recognized they had a problem and have been slowly dealing with every holding. To the point they might actually be done. 
 

In terms of Blackberry, another legacy dog, Fairfax has been materially exiting this position over the past 5 years. To the point that it is a very small holding today. And with the latest 13F, it appears they are shrinking it further. 
 

What I don’t do is look at decisions they made in 2012 or 2013 or 2014 and extrapolate or try and draw any strong parallels to today. That was a lifetime ago. I am not sure what informational value it has anymore… other than they made a big mistake. And it appears they have learned from each of them. 
 

My view is Fairfax is a completely different company in 2025 than it was in 2013. 
 

The parrallel today would be looking at Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway and trying to evaluate it today through the lens of the Dexter Shoes or investment in Salomon Brothers… I am not sure kind of logic makes any sense. At some point, we need to move on from decisions Fairfax made more than 10 years ago (like Blackberry). At least that is how my brain works. Having said that, everyone needs to find a mental model that works for them (and delivers good results). 

[SafetyinNumbers]

The Hamblin Watsa investment style is expected value and most investors are quality investors. On this board quality with a value screen. Quality investors don’t accept that a third of the investments will likely be duds and that we don’t know which investments will be duds ahead of time. I think @73 Reds is correct, that the focus should be on the results. I’m not sure we’ve ever had more visibility on future results so it’s easy to own at such a cheap valuation. If it starts getting cloudy at a high valuation it will be more difficult to own.

[Hamburg Investor]

1 hour ago, Viking said:

@dartmonkey, I am not following your logic. My chart was a summary of the change in the share price over the past 5 years of Fairfax’s large publicly traded equity holdings. I didn’t include sales like Stelco and Resolute Forest Products, both of which were exceptionally well timed and delivered significant value to shareholders. 
 

What are the equity decisions that Fairfax has made over the past 5 years that have not worked out? I mean big ones. I can’t think of any. 
 

 

 

While I agree, that such a view has a lot of information in it, we maybe should be clear, that the decisions made are not only 5 years old. Eurobank was a bad investment in 2014. And a good one in the next years (all before 2020). You are not saying anything else to be clear; I just want to underline, that this timeframe shows the results of "new FHH" from its best site. But clearly some of the big investments were made in 2015 (e. g. Eurobank, Fairfax India). Thomas Cook and Metlen were first purchased in 2012 (2013?), Waterous Energy in 2017. The BDT investment began 2009. So there were bad investments and good ones.
 

1 hour ago, Viking said:

 

What I don’t do is look at decisions they made in 2012 or 2013 or 2014 and extrapolate or try and draw any strong parallels to today. That was a lifetime ago. I am not sure what informational value it has anymore… other than they made a big mistake. And it appears they have learned from each of them. 
 

My view is Fairfax is a completely different company in 2025 than it was in 2013. 

 

I agree, that Prem learned and that it would be a bad idea to extrapolate his bad decisions. Still that doesn't mean, that all decisions in "the bad years were bad". E. g. 2009 and 2012 were "bad years" - but see above: Metlen, Eurobank, Thomas Cook are the 3 best stock performers - and all have been initially been bought in the bad years (while he bought more over the years; but my point is, that Prem was able to make good decisions even in the bad years). Some are only really starting to shine after 2020. But Prem discovered the investments much earlier. We shouldn't forget that.

And I know I'm repeating myself: In many of what most of us see as "the bad years", almost all value investors performed quite poorly because growth stocks benefited greatly from extremely low interest rates; and nearly everything else was performing bad. And with growth I mean the few tech stocks. But today we see Eurobank was a great investment (while not the very first investment into it... ;-), but Mr. Market didn't like it until 2021 or so. I would find it weird to think of Prem having made a bad decision in the bad years by not buying the strong tech performers and sticking to Eurobank, Metlen, Thomas Cook. If interest rates would have gone up in - say - 2017, we wouldn't look at 2020 as the turnaround year for FFH. In others words: Some of the great stock findings of Prem are going back to the bad years. But until 2020/2021 even the good decisions weren't performing (and the bad weren't performing good before and after and it was good to get rid of the bad ones). Interest had to get higher to normal levels first - and that was the point, where Prems great stock investments began to shine.

Was it predictable that interest rates would remain so low for such a long time? And that virtually only tech stocks would benefit? I don't think so. It's always easy to say in hindsight. Did FFH go too far by making particularly bad investment decisions? Definitely. Was every decision made by Prem bad in "the bad years"? I don't think so (Eurobank, Metlen, Thomas Cook, etc.; those initial buy decisions are coming from that years; the top3 performers in your chart). And it was a great decision to buy more of some over the years by Prem. Has Prem learned from his mistakes? I think so. (and btw: Has FFH's insurance business improved significantly since 2011? Definitely)

 

[Parsad]

I've watched Fairfax longer than most and I know it's management very well.  I would recommend that investors take a conservative approach to Fairfax, the same way they do any idea.  

 

Do not assume Fairfax is a completely different company than they were in the past...that extrapolation isn't accurate, since the company has been around 40 years and many are looking at only the last 5.  

 

Do not assume that Fairfax has not learned from the past either...these are talented, smart, honest people who work very hard to do the best they can for their company and shareholders.  

 

In the last 40 years, Fairfax has compounded at 17% annualized or so alongside growth in book value...use that as your long-term yard stick for the next 40 years.  If you do worse, at least you implemented a margin of safety when buying.  If you do better, that's just icing on the cake!

 

Cheers!

[Viking]

5 hours ago, Hamburg Investor said:

 

While I agree, that such a view has a lot of information in it, we maybe should be clear, that the decisions made are not only 5 years old. Eurobank was a bad investment in 2014. And a good one in the next years (all before 2020). You are not saying anything else to be clear; I just want to underline, that this timeframe shows the results of "new FHH" from its best site. But clearly some of the big investments were made in 2015 (e. g. Eurobank, Fairfax India). Thomas Cook and Metlen were first purchased in 2012 (2013?), Waterous Energy in 2017. The BDT investment began 2009. So there were bad investments and good ones.
 

 

I agree, that Prem learned and that it would be a bad idea to extrapolate his bad decisions. Still that doesn't mean, that all decisions in "the bad years were bad". E. g. 2009 and 2012 were "bad years" - but see above: Metlen, Eurobank, Thomas Cook are the 3 best stock performers - and all have been initially been bought in the bad years (while he bought more over the years; but my point is, that Prem was able to make good decisions even in the bad years). Some are only really starting to shine after 2020. But Prem discovered the investments much earlier. We shouldn't forget that.

And I know I'm repeating myself: In many of what most of us see as "the bad years", almost all value investors performed quite poorly because growth stocks benefited greatly from extremely low interest rates; and nearly everything else was performing bad. And with growth I mean the few tech stocks. But today we see Eurobank was a great investment (while not the very first investment into it... ;-), but Mr. Market didn't like it until 2021 or so. I would find it weird to think of Prem having made a bad decision in the bad years by not buying the strong tech performers and sticking to Eurobank, Metlen, Thomas Cook. If interest rates would have gone up in - say - 2017, we wouldn't look at 2020 as the turnaround year for FFH. In others words: Some of the great stock findings of Prem are going back to the bad years. But until 2020/2021 even the good decisions weren't performing (and the bad weren't performing good before and after and it was good to get rid of the bad ones). Interest had to get higher to normal levels first - and that was the point, where Prems great stock investments began to shine.

Was it predictable that interest rates would remain so low for such a long time? And that virtually only tech stocks would benefit? I don't think so. It's always easy to say in hindsight. Did FFH go too far by making particularly bad investment decisions? Definitely. Was every decision made by Prem bad in "the bad years"? I don't think so (Eurobank, Metlen, Thomas Cook, etc.; those initial buy decisions are coming from that years; the top3 performers in your chart). And it was a great decision to buy more of some over the years by Prem. Has Prem learned from his mistakes? I think so. (and btw: Has FFH's insurance business improved significantly since 2011? Definitely)

 

@Hamburg Investor , i appreciate the opportunity to discuss/debate. That is how we all learn and refine our ideas  

 

My view is Eurobank was a very bad investment back in December of 2014. Fairfax invested $444 million and it promptly went to zero. With hindsight, this initial investment had no downside protection. I am not sure how that can be viewed as a good decision - unless it was made as a pure speculation (which I am assuming it wasn’t).
 

Fairfax then invested another $389 million in November of 2015. That investment performed terribly for many years. At the time, Fairfax completely underestimated how impaired the Greek economy was and how long it was going to remain impaired. The bottom line… owning a bank when a depression is raging and the country is being governed by socialists is not a good idea. 

 

My view is this was a terrible investment from 2014 to 2018. It performed terribly on an absolute basis. And even worse when you factor in opportunity cost. 
 

What made Eurobank a great investment?
 

2019/2020 was when Fairfax got to work fixing many of its shitty investments. EXCO emerged from bankruptcy and was restructured. AGT was taken private. APR was sold to Atlas. Fairfax Africa was put out of its misery (merged with Helios). From 2019 to 2025, Fairfax exited or fixed most of the shitty investments. 

Fairfax didn’t exit Eurobank - Fairfax decided back in 2019 that it was one of the keepers. That was when the brilliant decision was made to merge Eurobank with Grivalia Properties (which was a great investment). My view is that is when Eurobank probably stopped being a terrible investment for Fairfax. It was then that you could start to see the potential in Eurobank. But it still took until 2021 for the stock to start to move.
 

To summarize, my view is Eurobank was a terrible investment for many years. And then it became an ok investment. And in recent years it has become a great investment.
 

Perhaps I am simply playing tricks on my mind in looking at Fairfax and their decision making in this way. It makes logical sense to me to look at it this way. But I know I am a different duck in how I look at some things. Again, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss these topics. It is super interesting. 
—————

The fundamentals have been materially changing with Eurobank as an investment over the past 10 years. The fact that the fundamentals for Eurobank look great today does not give Fairfax a free pass on the decisions they made in 2014 or 2015. IMHO. 

Edited August 22, 2025 by Viking

[glider3834]

15 hours ago, netcash1 said:

Go Digit Life Insurance is small but gaining market share fast.  Hidden gem under the hood.

looks like they have increased their shareholding in Go Digit Life to 34.2% 

 

 

[73 Reds]

9 hours ago, Parsad said:

I've watched Fairfax longer than most and I know it's management very well.  I would recommend that investors take a conservative approach to Fairfax, the same way they do any idea.  

 

Do not assume Fairfax is a completely different company than they were in the past...that extrapolation isn't accurate, since the company has been around 40 years and many are looking at only the last 5.  

 

Do not assume that Fairfax has not learned from the past either...these are talented, smart, honest people who work very hard to do the best they can for their company and shareholders.  

 

In the last 40 years, Fairfax has compounded at 17% annualized or so alongside growth in book value...use that as your long-term yard stick for the next 40 years.  If you do worse, at least you implemented a margin of safety when buying.  If you do better, that's just icing on the cake!

 

Cheers!

Show of hands:  Who here would not accept 17% annualized growth for the next 40 years?  Anyone?

[dartmonkey]

My chart was a summary of the change in the share price over the past 5 years of Fairfax’s large publicly traded equity holdings. I didn’t include sales like Stelco and Resolute Forest Products, both of which were exceptionally well timed and delivered significant value to shareholders. 
 

What are the equity decisions that Fairfax has made over the past 5 years that have not worked out? I mean big ones. I can’t think of any. 

 

I tend to agree with you that their decisions in the past 5 years have been very good, and I am not contesting that point. I am only pointing out that the test of how well recent decisions have worked out would be to make a list of those decisions, and the returns since then, not just looking at the biggest 20 positions today and how well they worked out. For instance, to take an extreme case, say they had had 20 $1b investments in 2019 that all went to $100m, and 20 $100m investments that all went to $1b. That would actually be a terrible result, with $22b in investments that went to $22b, i.e. zero annualized return. But your chart would show the 20 $1b positions and how brilliant they were, and the 20 bad decisions, which had only a small current value, would not appear on the chart. I am not saying that that is what has happened, just that there is a survivor effect that this sort of analysis is vulnerable to.

 

 

What I don’t do is look at decisions they made in 2012 or 2013 or 2014 and extrapolate or try and draw any strong parallels to today. That was a lifetime ago. I am not sure what informational value it has anymore… other than they made a big mistake. And it appears they have learned from each of them. 
 

My view is Fairfax is a completely different company in 2025 than it was in 2013.

 

I don't really agree - 10-12 years ago for me is not a lifetime ago. This was largely the same people who made a big mistake, and they could make the same mistake again. I think there are good reasons to believe they have learned the lesson, just as I hope I have learned my lesson not to short companies I think are hugely overvalued. I think their 40-year history of 17-18% annual increase in book value, with extreme lumpiness, is still relevant, and the bad period from around 2010 to 2020 is part of that. If you cut out that period, then you also lose some of the really good investments, like Stelco and Eurobank and Metlen. The beautiful thing about investing in value situations is that the bad decisions end up becoming a smaller part of the whole, so going forward, snafus like Blackberry are no longer a problem. But this was a very big investment, even 6 years ago, since holding onto it is also a decision. And so my main point is that a full accounting of their performance should include all the big capital allocations, not just the ones that are still worth a lot today.