Viking Posted January 8 Posted January 8 (edited) CEO compensation is in the news. Berkshire Hathaway (Greg Abel) = $25 million Markel (Tom Gaynor) = $9.7 million Fairfax (Prem Watsa) = C$600,000 cash (no stock options or awards) Fairfax shareholders are getting an unbelievable deal. Especially when you factor in performance. Dramatically underpaying your CEO boosts bottom line results. Doing so for decades boosts the intrinsic value of the company. Of the three CEO's listed above, which one owns the most of their respective company? Prem, who owns 9.2% of Fairfax. His interests are firmly aligned with those of long term shareholders. Fairfax is a very shareholder friendly company. Another under-appreciated strength. Edited January 8 by Viking
SafetyinNumbers Posted January 8 Posted January 8 21 minutes ago, Viking said: CEO compensation is in the news. Berkshire Hathaway (Greg Abel) = $25 million Markel (Tom Gaynor) = $9.7 million Fairfax (Prem Watsa) = C$600,000 cash (no stock options or awards) Fairfax shareholders are getting an unbelievable deal. Dramatically underpaying your CEO boosts bottom line results. Doing so for decades boosts the intrinsic value of the company. Of the three CEO's listed above, which one owns the most of their respective company? Prem, who owns 9.2% of Fairfax. His interests are firmly aligned with those of long term shareholders. Fairfax is a very shareholder friendly company. Another under-appreciated strength. I think Prem’s contract expired at the end of last year so I’m curious if they will be making any changes going forward.
Munger_Disciple Posted January 8 Posted January 8 (edited) 1 hour ago, Viking said: CEO compensation is in the news. Berkshire Hathaway (Greg Abel) = $25 million Markel (Tom Gaynor) = $9.7 million Fairfax (Prem Watsa) = C$600,000 cash (no stock options or awards) Fairfax shareholders are getting an unbelievable deal. Especially when you factor in performance. Dramatically underpaying your CEO boosts bottom line results. Doing so for decades boosts the intrinsic value of the company. Of the three CEO's listed above, which one owns the most of their respective company? Prem, who owns 9.2% of Fairfax. His interests are firmly aligned with those of long term shareholders. Fairfax is a very shareholder friendly company. Another under-appreciated strength. In terms of Berkshire & FFH CEO comp, it's an apples to oranges comparison. You are leaving out the fact that Warren (basically the founder of Berkshire) kept his salary at $100K for 60 years & he reimbursed the company 1/2 of his salary for personal expenses like postage. And Prem is wisely following in Warren's enormous footsteps thus setting the tone from top at FFH, which is very admirable. And Greg's comp was hardly a bump from $21mm he earned last year as Vice Chairman of non-insurance ops and very reasonable for the CEO of one of the top 10 companies in the US. And that's his total comp, as Berkshire doesn't award any stock based comp to any of its executives unlike FFH. My math says Prem's economic interest in FFH is roughly 6.1%, not 9.2%. And Warren's economic interest in Berkshire today is roughly 15% after giving away half his BRK shares to charity since 2006. Edited January 8 by Munger_Disciple
gfp Posted January 8 Posted January 8 Yeah, Prem owns just over half of Sixy Two and Sixty Two owns about 1.6 million shares plus Prem owns 467,196 shares himself. Half of 1.6 million is 799,310 plus 467,196 gets you to 1,266,506 and Fairfax las reported a share count of 21.221 million shares so that spits out less than 6% economic ownership of Fairfax.
Viking Posted January 8 Posted January 8 (edited) 38 minutes ago, gfp said: Yeah, Prem owns just over half of Sixy Two and Sixty Two owns about 1.6 million shares plus Prem owns 467,196 shares himself. Half of 1.6 million is 799,310 plus 467,196 gets you to 1,266,506 and Fairfax las reported a share count of 21.221 million shares so that spits out less than 6% economic ownership of Fairfax. I got lazy in my prior post; I meant 'owned/controlled'. I used what was reported in Fairfax's Proxy Report. Below are updated numbers/estimates. My guess is effective shares outstanding will be around 21 million at YE. Edited January 9 by Viking
Viking Posted January 9 Posted January 9 (edited) 1 hour ago, Munger_Disciple said: In terms of Berkshire & FFH CEO comp, it's an apples to oranges comparison. You are leaving out the fact that Warren (basically the founder of Berkshire) kept his salary at $100K for 60 years & he reimbursed the company 1/2 of his salary for personal expenses like postage. And Prem is wisely following in Warren's enormous footsteps thus setting the tone from top at FFH, which is very admirable. And Greg's comp was hardly a bump from $21mm he earned last year as Vice Chairman of non-insurance ops and very reasonable for the CEO of one of the top 10 companies in the US. And that's his total comp, as Berkshire doesn't award any stock based comp to any of its executives unlike FFH. My math says Prem's economic interest in FFH is roughly 6.1%, not 9.2%. And Warren's economic interest in Berkshire today is roughly 15% after giving away half his BRK shares to charity since 2006. @Munger_Disciple, thanks for catching my error. I meant to say owned/controlled. My post was not meant as a slight to the CEO of Berkshire. For a company of that size, $25 million per year is likely a very good deal for shareholders. And I agree, Buffett's salary at $100,000 per year was a crazy good deal for BRK shareholders. But my guess is that is well understood. Prem at C$600,000? My guess is that is not well understood. Hence why I thought it was worth bringing up. And it also aligns with the 'shareholder friendly' theme - another strength of Fairfax that is not generally understood or recognized. Edited January 9 by Viking
Viking Posted January 9 Posted January 9 (edited) 1 hour ago, SafetyinNumbers said: I think Prem’s contract expired at the end of last year so I’m curious if they will be making any changes going forward. My guess is he will get a nice bump But I don't know... the increase in the share price was only +30% in 2025. The increase was materially below each of the prior two years when it was +50%. Looks like he is slipping... Edited January 9 by Viking
UK Posted January 9 Posted January 9 3 hours ago, Viking said: My guess is he will get a nice bump But I don't know... the increase in the share price was only +30% in 2025. The increase was materially below each of the prior two years when it was +50%. Looks like he is slipping...
Parsad Posted January 9 Posted January 9 6 hours ago, SafetyinNumbers said: I think Prem’s contract expired at the end of last year so I’m curious if they will be making any changes going forward. 4 hours ago, Viking said: My guess is he will get a nice bump But I don't know... the increase in the share price was only +30% in 2025. The increase was materially below each of the prior two years when it was +50%. Looks like he is slipping... No, Prem's salary won't change. It's fixed till he stops working for Fairfax. The dividend was the tool always intended to increase his annual compensation and keep it aligned with shareholders. The day he is replaced, I'm sure the new CEO will get a salary more in line with Fairfax's peers, but Prem's salary won't increase. Cheers!
villainx Posted January 9 Posted January 9 I mean, you can have a pretty good life with C$600,000 per year. Especially if you include 6% - 9.8% ownership interest in $40 billion dollar company.
Munger_Disciple Posted January 9 Posted January 9 7 hours ago, Viking said: @Munger_Disciple, thanks for catching my error. I meant to say owned/controlled Prem actually has much higher 43.2% of voting control due to his control of lhe 1.548 million multiple voting shares. Even if he sold all his subordinate voting shares, he will still have 41.8% of the voting control. But economically he has roughly 6% interest in the company.
gfp Posted January 9 Posted January 9 Little by little the story is getting picked up by the mainstream.
Hoodlum Posted January 9 Posted January 9 (edited) There was a 50k share cross at the open done through Questrade. I don’t think I have seen much volume through Questrade previously. I had thought only individual investors used Questrade. Edited January 9 by Hoodlum
gfp Posted January 9 Posted January 9 (edited) 3 minutes ago, Hoodlum said: There was a 50k share cross at the open done through Questrade. I don’t think I have seen much volume through Questrade previously. I had thought only individual investors used Questrade. You know how it goes. Some doctor reads a bloomberg article about the next Berkshire Hathaway but he has to go to work early so he puts in a market order for $95 million before the market opens and starts his shift. Checks back after work to see how the execution went. Edited January 9 by gfp
73 Reds Posted January 9 Posted January 9 16 minutes ago, gfp said: You know how it goes. Some doctor reads a bloomberg article about the next Berkshire Hathaway but he has to go to work early so he puts in a market order for $95 million before the market opens and starts his shift. Checks back after work to see how the execution went. @gfp you must know different doctors than me. All the doctors I know work crazy hours and wish they made as much money as us.
backtothebeach Posted January 9 Posted January 9 25 minutes ago, gfp said: You know how it goes. Some doctor reads a bloomberg article about the next Berkshire Hathaway but he has to go to work early so he puts in a market order for $95 million before the market opens and starts his shift. Checks back after work to see how the execution went. Sorry, fat finger.
Marco Van Basten Posted January 9 Posted January 9 25 minutes ago, 73 Reds said: @gfp you must know different doctors than me. All the doctors I know work crazy hours and wish they made as much money as us. Plenty of doctors with own practice may several million dollars a year in NYC. Fertility doctors in NYC made $6-10MM a decade ago, now much more I presume.
73 Reds Posted January 9 Posted January 9 5 minutes ago, Marco Van Basten said: Plenty of doctors with own practice may several million dollars a year in NYC. Fertility doctors in NYC made $6-10MM a decade ago, now much more I presume. LOL, door men in NYC make more than some doctors I know.
vinod1 Posted January 9 Posted January 9 24 minutes ago, 73 Reds said: @gfp you must know different doctors than me. All the doctors I know work crazy hours and wish they made as much money as us. During the height of Covid, a family member who is a doctor specializing in infectious diseases stayed at our house for a couple of days when they got a break. The family member was furiously texting at 6 AM to colleagues who are covering patients in her absence. I commented that it must be tough to cover for her absence and the remaining doctors must be overloaded. She told me that they are chatting about SAAS stock tips! Vinod
Marco Van Basten Posted January 9 Posted January 9 28 minutes ago, 73 Reds said: LOL, door men in NYC make more than some doctors I know. Really? Every doctor I know in NYC gets offers to go to the South or rural areas - Maine for double the pay... But yes, NYC is an absurdly expensive place...
73 Reds Posted January 9 Posted January 9 1 hour ago, Marco Van Basten said: Really? Every doctor I know in NYC gets offers to go to the South or rural areas - Maine for double the pay... But yes, NYC is an absurdly expensive place... Not trying to pollute this thread any further but specialists in any field get paid and most doctors aren't specialists - i.e., primary physicians, family doctors, urgent care, VA, etc... And as for door men? Personal anecdote: My wife and I make frequent short visits to Boston (so not even NYC in terms of overall expense) and we like to stay at the same Back Bay hotel. She loves the door man there and pays him $200 to pick us up and take us to and from the airport - $200/pop. Mind you the trip is little more than 5 miles each way and she pays - if it were up to me I'd take the T for about $3.75. I asked him once how many of these side trips he does a week. Answer: More than 10. Tax-free, no malpractice insurance required and still draws a nice salary and tips as a door man.
Mephistopheles Posted January 10 Posted January 10 I’m a doctor and I make more from investing, and I also bought Fairfax on the dip this week. Not a market order and certainly not $95 million
ValueNation Posted January 10 Posted January 10 3 hours ago, Mephistopheles said: I’m a doctor and I make more from investing Me too - last few years have definitely made more from investing than from my academic specialist income. I've had my share of fat finger mistakes, but thankfully not that big!
UK Posted January 10 Posted January 10 On 1/9/2026 at 3:56 PM, gfp said: You know how it goes. Some doctor reads a bloomberg article about the next Berkshire Hathaway but he has to go to work early so he puts in a market order for $95 million before the market opens and starts his shift. Checks back after work to see how the execution went.
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