NnnnotSoSmart Posted May 14 Posted May 14 14 hours ago, Parsad said: Not entirely. Anyone involved with the mining industry knows that is the rule, not the exception. It's cleaned up in many areas over the decades, but every time there is a boom, the scumbags crawl out from under their rocks too! Cheers! Notable Canadian Bankruptcies & Insolvencies Company Notable Event Status / Summary Bre-X Minerals Ltd. The "Busang" Fraud Once a market darling, the company collapsed in 1997 after it was revealed its massive Indonesian gold find was a total fraud. Shares went from CA$280 to worthless almost overnight. Victoria Gold Corp. Eagle Mine Failure In June 2024, a massive heap leach pad failure at the Eagle mine caused an environmental disaster. The company was put into receivership in August 2024 after failing to manage the fallout. Pure Gold Mining Inc. Operational Shortfall Filed for CCAA (creditor protection) in November 2022 after its Red Lake, Ontario mine failed to produce enough gold to cover its CA$100M+ in liabilities. Great Panther Mining Liquidity Crisis Filed for CCAA in October 2022 due to mounting debt (over CA$10M) and production issues at its Brazilian gold mine, leading to a delisting from the TSX. Bonte Gold Mines Reckless Liquidation This 85% Canadian-owned subsidiary went into abrupt liquidation in March 2004, abandoning an alluvial mine in Ghana with US$18M in debt and significant environmental damage. Yukon Zinc Corp. Financial Distress Though primarily a zinc producer with gold credits, it entered creditor protection in 2015 and eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2019 after abandoning its Wolverine mine.
NnnnotSoSmart Posted May 14 Posted May 14 4 minutes ago, NnnnotSoSmart said: Notable Canadian Bankruptcies & Insolvencies Company Notable Event Status / Summary Bre-X Minerals Ltd. The "Busang" Fraud Once a market darling, the company collapsed in 1997 after it was revealed its massive Indonesian gold find was a total fraud. Shares went from CA$280 to worthless almost overnight. Victoria Gold Corp. Eagle Mine Failure In June 2024, a massive heap leach pad failure at the Eagle mine caused an environmental disaster. The company was put into receivership in August 2024 after failing to manage the fallout. Pure Gold Mining Inc. Operational Shortfall Filed for CCAA (creditor protection) in November 2022 after its Red Lake, Ontario mine failed to produce enough gold to cover its CA$100M+ in liabilities. Great Panther Mining Liquidity Crisis Filed for CCAA in October 2022 due to mounting debt (over CA$10M) and production issues at its Brazilian gold mine, leading to a delisting from the TSX. Bonte Gold Mines Reckless Liquidation This 85% Canadian-owned subsidiary went into abrupt liquidation in March 2004, abandoning an alluvial mine in Ghana with US$18M in debt and significant environmental damage. Yukon Zinc Corp. Financial Distress Though primarily a zinc producer with gold credits, it entered creditor protection in 2015 and eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2019 after abandoning its Wolverine mine. Not suggesting the Orla/Equinox deal is bad, nor that either of the two companies is a fraud. I haven't vetted them but I assume Fairfax management have. I hold undergraduate and graduate engineering degrees related to mineral extraction. Worked 33 years in the mineral extraction business. Have evaluated a large number of deals and projects. As Parsad points out, there's a lot crap out there. That includes mineral assets and the people promoting them.
Crip1 Posted May 14 Posted May 14 20 minutes ago, NnnnotSoSmart said: Not suggesting the Orla/Equinox deal is bad, nor that either of the two companies is a fraud. I haven't vetted them but I assume Fairfax management have. I hold undergraduate and graduate engineering degrees related to mineral extraction. Worked 33 years in the mineral extraction business. Have evaluated a large number of deals and projects. As Parsad points out, there's a lot crap out there. That includes mineral assets and the people promoting them. "If you don't know the horse, know the jockey" - Fascinating how simple Buffett/Munger-isms hold true as much today as they did when he first said them. -Crip
Parsad Posted May 14 Posted May 14 58 minutes ago, NnnnotSoSmart said: Notable Canadian Bankruptcies & Insolvencies Company Notable Event Status / Summary Bre-X Minerals Ltd. The "Busang" Fraud Once a market darling, the company collapsed in 1997 after it was revealed its massive Indonesian gold find was a total fraud. Shares went from CA$280 to worthless almost overnight. Victoria Gold Corp. Eagle Mine Failure In June 2024, a massive heap leach pad failure at the Eagle mine caused an environmental disaster. The company was put into receivership in August 2024 after failing to manage the fallout. Pure Gold Mining Inc. Operational Shortfall Filed for CCAA (creditor protection) in November 2022 after its Red Lake, Ontario mine failed to produce enough gold to cover its CA$100M+ in liabilities. Great Panther Mining Liquidity Crisis Filed for CCAA in October 2022 due to mounting debt (over CA$10M) and production issues at its Brazilian gold mine, leading to a delisting from the TSX. Bonte Gold Mines Reckless Liquidation This 85% Canadian-owned subsidiary went into abrupt liquidation in March 2004, abandoning an alluvial mine in Ghana with US$18M in debt and significant environmental damage. Yukon Zinc Corp. Financial Distress Though primarily a zinc producer with gold credits, it entered creditor protection in 2015 and eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2019 after abandoning its Wolverine mine. And these are the larger ones over the years. There are tons of junior companies that are just pure pump and dump, eventually disappearing, turn into zombie companies, or the shell is reused in a "rinse & repeat" effort by the same promoters. Cheers!
Parsad Posted May 14 Posted May 14 49 minutes ago, NnnnotSoSmart said: Not suggesting the Orla/Equinox deal is bad, nor that either of the two companies is a fraud. I haven't vetted them but I assume Fairfax management have. I hold undergraduate and graduate engineering degrees related to mineral extraction. Worked 33 years in the mineral extraction business. Have evaluated a large number of deals and projects. As Parsad points out, there's a lot crap out there. That includes mineral assets and the people promoting them. Absolutely...Orla/Equinox is the exception. Just anyone in the industry really needs to know the people involved and what they are doing, because there are a lot of bad actors in the industry. Most of the illegal activity cited by regulators and "pump and dump" activity happens in the resource sector in Canada. Cheers!
Parsad Posted May 14 Posted May 14 27 minutes ago, Crip1 said: "If you don't know the horse, know the jockey" - Fascinating how simple Buffett/Munger-isms hold true as much today as they did when he first said them. -Crip Yup! 100%. Cheers!
gfp Posted May 14 Posted May 14 Fairfax sold a bunch of OXY around $3.74 in early March ODDSY_Q1_26_23680.2026.P.Q1.P.O.1.5184506.pdf
gfp Posted May 14 Posted May 14 (edited) attached are Odyssey's equity purchases during Q1 (not all of Fairfax, just the Odyssey bucket. 13F should be out soon) Looks like they started buying Exor (i don't know how to make these not blurry, the original PDF is in the post above this) Edited May 14 by gfp
Viking Posted May 14 Posted May 14 (edited) Fairfax first invested in Orla Mining in 2022 and continued to build its position until 2024. Fairfax sold ~25% of its position in late 2025 for a big gain. Orla has been an exceptional investment for Fairfax. With a market value of about $1.1 billion, Orla Mining is Fairfax’s 4th largest equity holding. On May 13, 2026, Orla and Equinox Gold announced a combination of the two companies. They hosted a conference call with analysts to discuss the proposed combination of the two companies. Link to presentation: https://wp-orlamining-2024.s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com/media/2026/05/Equinox-and-Orla-Announcement-20260513.pdf Link to call: https://event.choruscall.com/mediaframe/webcast.html?webcastid=KqhsPRKx ---------- The comments below from Ross Beaty, Chair of Equinox Gold, summarizes nicely the benefits to both companies from the combination: scale matters in mining - for whole bunch of important reasons. “Well, this is a momentous day for Equinox Gold, and it's a momentous day for me personally. Just over eight years ago, we began our journey to build Equinox Gold. From the beginning, we had one big goal - to build a great new gold company at scale. "Why have we focused on scale? "Because it creates better resilience and diversification against risk, better valuation multiples, better liquidity, a stronger financial condition, and, most importantly, greater leverage to gold. "Since we began in 2018 I've been bullish on the gold price, and I've been right. Gold has had a glorious run. But I'm just as bullish today, given the macro environment, particularly for the US dollar. "Gold is money. It's been money for 5000 years. And it's been used as money as much today as ever. The bigger our company is in gold production and gold reserves and resources, the better we will deliver value to our shareholders as the gold price rises. "To build scale, Equinox has - since 2018 - combined with four companies, including today's deal with Orla. We've built mines. We've sold mines that were non core. And we've spun out three companies, each with over $1 billion in market value today. It's been a busy time, and I thank our whole management team and Board for their hard work in making all this happen. "The Orla deal will add icing on the Equinox cake. Darren Hall and Jason Simpson will add details about today's announcement. I only want to say how exciting this combination is for me. "It's truly synergistic. Both companies have mines in Mexico, the United States and Canada with a total of 1.1 million ounces of gold production. And our three mines in Canada will make us the second largest Canadian gold producer at 700,000 ounces of production. "We also have exceptional organic growth prospects that give us the clear path to about 1.9 million ounces of gold production per year in a few years - all self funded from a robust free cash flow. "I'm very pumped about this transaction, and I know it will create terrific shareholder value…” Edited May 14 by Viking
Spooky Posted May 14 Posted May 14 Market doesn't seem that enthused by the combination judging by the decline in the stock prices since announcement although the decrease is fairly small.
treasurehunt Posted May 14 Posted May 14 3 hours ago, gfp said: Fairfax sold a bunch of OXY around $3.74 in early March I see a sale of around 1.82 million shares of OXY for $97.7 million, which works out to a bit under $54 per share. What does this $3.74 refer to?
Viking Posted May 14 Posted May 14 (edited) 3 hours ago, Spooky said: Market doesn't seem that enthused by the combination judging by the decline in the stock prices since announcement although the decrease is fairly small. Really? I think gold stocks have been weak in general the past few days... Edited May 14 by Viking
NnnnotSoSmart Posted May 14 Posted May 14 4 hours ago, Viking said: Fairfax first invested in Orla Mining in 2022 and continued to build its position until 2024. Fairfax sold ~25% of its position in late 2025 for a big gain. Orla has been an exceptional investment for Fairfax. With a market value of about $1.1 billion, Orla Mining is Fairfax’s 4th largest equity holding. On May 13, 2026, Orla and Equinox Gold announced a combination of the two companies. They hosted a conference call with analysts to discuss the proposed combination of the two companies. Link to presentation: https://wp-orlamining-2024.s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com/media/2026/05/Equinox-and-Orla-Announcement-20260513.pdf Link to call: https://event.choruscall.com/mediaframe/webcast.html?webcastid=KqhsPRKx ---------- The comments below from Ross Beaty, Chair of Equinox Gold, summarizes nicely the benefits to both companies from the combination: scale matters in mining - for whole bunch of important reasons. “Well, this is a momentous day for Equinox Gold, and it's a momentous day for me personally. Just over eight years ago, we began our journey to build Equinox Gold. From the beginning, we had one big goal - to build a great new gold company at scale. "Why have we focused on scale? "Because it creates better resilience and diversification against risk, better valuation multiples, better liquidity, a stronger financial condition, and, most importantly, greater leverage to gold. "Since we began in 2018 I've been bullish on the gold price, and I've been right. Gold has had a glorious run. But I'm just as bullish today, given the macro environment, particularly for the US dollar. "Gold is money. It's been money for 5000 years. And it's been used as money as much today as ever. The bigger our company is in gold production and gold reserves and resources, the better we will deliver value to our shareholders as the gold price rises. "To build scale, Equinox has - since 2018 - combined with four companies, including today's deal with Orla. We've built mines. We've sold mines that were non core. And we've spun out three companies, each with over $1 billion in market value today. It's been a busy time, and I thank our whole management team and Board for their hard work in making all this happen. "The Orla deal will add icing on the Equinox cake. Darren Hall and Jason Simpson will add details about today's announcement. I only want to say how exciting this combination is for me. "It's truly synergistic. Both companies have mines in Mexico, the United States and Canada with a total of 1.1 million ounces of gold production. And our three mines in Canada will make us the second largest Canadian gold producer at 700,000 ounces of production. "We also have exceptional organic growth prospects that give us the clear path to about 1.9 million ounces of gold production per year in a few years - all self funded from a robust free cash flow. "I'm very pumped about this transaction, and I know it will create terrific shareholder value…” Viking, Thanks for the Fairfax/Orla history and the link to the deal description. Lassonde and Beatty are reputable people. Don't know the others. I like the leveraged exposure to gold that Fairfax has through these miners. If they can reach 1.9 million ounces of gold/year that will be significant. Below are the top 6 gold producers in the world. At 1.9 Moz/yr Equinox/Orla would be right up there. Top Gold Miners by Annual Production Company 2025 Actual Production (Moz) 2026 Forecasted Production (Moz) Newmont Corporation ~5.50 – 5.80* ~5.40 – 5.60 Barrick Gold ~4.05 ~3.90 – 4.30 Agnico Eagle Mines ~3.40 – 3.50 ~3.40 – 3.60 AngloGold Ashanti 3.09 ~3.10 – 3.40 Gold Fields 2.30 – 2.45 ~2.50 – 2.80 Kinross Gold 2.00 2.00 (+/- 5%) Bought some more Fairfax today.
gfp Posted May 14 Posted May 14 (edited) 56 minutes ago, treasurehunt said: I see a sale of around 1.82 million shares of OXY for $97.7 million, which works out to a bit under $54 per share. What does this $3.74 refer to? 53.74 was what I meant to type the important bit is that they probably sold their entire position, we'll know when the 13f comes out very soon - they had the perfect storm of oil price spike bail them out and still sold out of a presumably "long term" investment at a loss on the first opportunity to approach break-even. Maybe they should leave energy investing to outsiders - they have not distinguished themselves trading impulsively in and out of copycat positions like this one. Edited May 14 by gfp
yesman182 Posted May 14 Posted May 14 32 minutes ago, gfp said: 53.74 was what I meant to type the important bit is that they probably sold their entire position, we'll know when the 13f comes out very soon - they had the perfect storm of oil price spike bail them out and still sold out of a presumably "long term" investment at a loss on the first opportunity to approach break-even. Maybe they should leave energy investing to outsiders - they have not distinguished themselves trading impulsively in and out of copycat positions like this one. That might be exactly what they are doing with the WEF fund investments. They are maintaining the exposure to the commodity with a much better jockey.
Eldad Posted May 14 Posted May 14 (edited) Forgive my ignorance, I have been out of Fairfax a while and recently got back in. Didn’t they promise to change a few years ago and bought GOOGL and JNJ etc? Do you all think the insurance success of the past few years has caused them to regress back to old ways on the stock side? When someone asked if they are looking at software during the AGM, Watsa sort of mumbled something about none of them are anywhere near as cheap/good as UA. Is he resuming a bigger role do you think? Edited May 14 by Eldad
gary17 Posted May 14 Posted May 14 that’s why fairfax is cheap for a reason investors are happy to move on
Gamecock-YT Posted May 15 Posted May 15 8 hours ago, gfp said: Looks like they started buying Exor Maybe they can add to the nepotism going on at the company by getting an Agnelli to join the board!
MMM20 Posted May 15 Posted May 15 (edited) 9 hours ago, gfp said: Looks like they started buying Exor Welcome to the pain train, Prem. Yes, Ferrari is a beast and might be the best business in the world. Yes, we are effectively buying it for low teens P/E with the NAV discount at Exor these days. But no, we cheap value guys will never make money in it. The market gods have spoken. Edited May 15 by MMM20
yesman182 Posted May 15 Posted May 15 Looks like they purchased $6 Million more of UA https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1336917/000094787126000543/xslF345X03/ownership.xml
petec Posted May 15 Author Posted May 15 On 5/13/2026 at 6:01 PM, Parsad said: The only reason they didn't achieve 15% or better annualized was because of the equity hedging and short positions. Not the only reason. Low rates was also key. The float-levered-investing model is very sensitive to rates and so are underwriting profits. I'd say both were below midcycle levels for most of 2010-2020.
glider3834 Posted May 15 Posted May 15 13 hours ago, gfp said: attached are Odyssey's equity purchases during Q1 (not all of Fairfax, just the Odyssey bucket. 13F should be out soon) Looks like they started buying Exor (i don't know how to make these not blurry, the original PDF is in the post above this) cheers gfp I suspect Exor could be larger for Fairfax overall - in the past they have split new equity investments between the different insurance subs here is a Barron's piece on Exor from earlier this year https://www.barrons.com/articles/buy-exor-stock-price-pick-ferrari-ef15ef21 interesting too given Jamie Lowry value investing presentation a few years ago
Viking Posted May 15 Posted May 15 9 hours ago, NnnnotSoSmart said: Viking, Thanks for the Fairfax/Orla history and the link to the deal description. Lassonde and Beatty are reputable people. Don't know the others. I like the leveraged exposure to gold that Fairfax has through these miners. If they can reach 1.9 million ounces of gold/year that will be significant. Below are the top 6 gold producers in the world. At 1.9 Moz/yr Equinox/Orla would be right up there. Top Gold Miners by Annual Production Company 2025 Actual Production (Moz) 2026 Forecasted Production (Moz) Newmont Corporation ~5.50 – 5.80* ~5.40 – 5.60 Barrick Gold ~4.05 ~3.90 – 4.30 Agnico Eagle Mines ~3.40 – 3.50 ~3.40 – 3.60 AngloGold Ashanti 3.09 ~3.10 – 3.40 Gold Fields 2.30 – 2.45 ~2.50 – 2.80 Kinross Gold 2.00 2.00 (+/- 5%) Bought some more Fairfax today. @NnnnotSoSmart, the interesting part of the merger to me is the size aspect (and understanding why big is better in mining). I think it is a similar logic with Foran’s purchase by Eldorado.
adventurer Posted May 15 Posted May 15 1 hour ago, glider3834 said: cheers gfp I suspect Exor could be larger for Fairfax overall - in the past they have split new equity investments between the different insurance subs here is a Barron's piece on Exor from earlier this year https://www.barrons.com/articles/buy-exor-stock-price-pick-ferrari-ef15ef21 interesting too given Jamie Lowry value investing presentation a few years ago Thank you. Any chance for a link that is not behind a paywall?
wondering Posted May 15 Posted May 15 https://www.ft.com/content/4ced6dd7-aecc-4bb6-a09d-5d4ed713be45?shareType=nongift. A not such great review of Metlen
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