Fairfax 2026

[Jaygo]

Topaz, EIC, Sobo, and NA but I usually just keep a large slug of XEI since it kind of acts like a dogs of the TSX. 

 

I borrowed to buy FFH, Strathcona, Topaz, Aecon, Sobo and Exchange income Corp and its been a wonderful experience. 

 

The tax treatment is really amazing as long as you have the stomach to ride it out and don't buy at 50x 

 

a lot of these have gone up very considerably so the yields are not great anymore. 

[gfp]

1 hour ago, thowed said:

The funny thing about the recent griping from a certain member is that today, while QQQ is down over 4%, FFH is up. 

 

Has been a wonderful day to have some of my losses offset.

 

funny day

 

Berkshire up

Fairfax up

Fairfax India up

Constellation Software up

Insurance brokers up

Boston Omaha up

 

[Hektor]

8 hours ago, 73 Reds said:

Even on a Board like this some people forget that stocks are partnership interests in businesses and not pieces of paper with ticker symbols attached.  The beauty is there is a perpetual offer to buy your interest and you have an ongoing opportunity to add to your ownership interest. 

+1

[mengan]

Fairfax Files Early Warning Report in Respect of Blue Ant Media
TORONTO, June 05, 2026 – Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (“Fairfax”) (TSX: FFH and FFH.U) announced today that it has filed an early warning report (the “Early Warning Report”) under National Instrument 62-103 – The Early Warning System and Related Take-Over Bid and Insider Reporting Issues in connection with its holdings of subordinate voting shares (“Subordinate Voting Shares”) of Blue Ant Media Corporation (TSX: BAMI) (“Blue Ant” or the “Corporation”).

 

https://www.fairfax.ca/press-releases/fairfax-files-early-warning-report-in-respect-of-blue-ant-media/

 

Not consequential.

[SafetyinNumbers]

17 minutes ago, mengan said:

Fairfax Files Early Warning Report in Respect of Blue Ant Media
TORONTO, June 05, 2026 – Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (“Fairfax”) (TSX: FFH and FFH.U) announced today that it has filed an early warning report (the “Early Warning Report”) under National Instrument 62-103 – The Early Warning System and Related Take-Over Bid and Insider Reporting Issues in connection with its holdings of subordinate voting shares (“Subordinate Voting Shares”) of Blue Ant Media Corporation (TSX: BAMI) (“Blue Ant” or the “Corporation”).

 

https://www.fairfax.ca/press-releases/fairfax-files-early-warning-report-in-respect-of-blue-ant-media/

 

Not consequential.

Trading below where they crossed stock last week, FWIW.

[Spekulatius]

On 6/4/2026 at 12:41 AM, Parsad said:

 

Even during the Great Depression after the Crash of 1929...if you continued to average down, or sell stocks to buy even cheaper ones, you came out well ahead over time...even over the ensuing 2-3 years.

 

If you stood pat, the recovery took a lot longer.  If you sold, you crystallized your losses.  If you were leveraged and/or on margin...odds are you were broke.  But averaging down worked as markets slowly recovered.

 

So if you are worried about the next 5 years or so...make sure you have some cash and live at or below your means.  If the markets or FFH stays low for a period of time, average down to cheaper valuations in other stocks or even FFH as the P/E compresses further.  

 

Cheers!

Yes,  but where does the money come from to average down in the Great Depression?

[Spekulatius]

2 hours ago, SafetyinNumbers said:

No. I don’t think the multiple will drop below 1x and BVPS is still growing 15-25% a year. 

I don’t think FFH‘s book value will grow by 15% every year either. If we have learned one thing with FFH in particular is that things don’t move in a straight line. i sm fairly sure that FFH will trade below book value again, but not sure when. Almost certainly in the next 10 years and likely the next 5.

 

I think FFH is a decent bargain here, but insurance means catastrophes and soft market happen and both will put pressure on multiples.

 

I still have my ~$450 cost basis shares to remind me where we are coming from just a few years ago. 

Edited June 5 by Spekulatius

[SafetyinNumbers]

58 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

I don’t think FFH‘s book value will grow by 15% every year either.

 My 15-25% estimate is a CAGR over the next 5 years. Hard to call any twelve month period. 
 

1 hour ago, Spekulatius said:

sm fairly sure that FFH will trade below book value again, but not sure when. Almost certainly in the next 10 years and likely the next 5.

How many shares do you think will be bought back during the next 10 years and next 5 years, respectively?

 

1 hour ago, Spekulatius said:

If we have learned one thing with FFH in particular is that things don’t move in a straight line.

Are you referring to BVPS growth or stock price or both? What’s your outlook for BVPS growth over the next 5 years? 

[Xerxes]

Corner of Goldman Sachs, Berkshire and Fairfax 

 

Cherry picking March 30, 2020

Regardless of the cherry picking, Solomon tenure and moving away from a heavy balance sheet has been a blockbuster 

 

[Spekulatius]

25 minutes ago, SafetyinNumbers said:

Are you referring to BVPS growth or stock price or both? What’s your outlook for BVPS growth over the next 5 years? 

I expect a soft insurance market for much of the time  and a lumpy ~10% book value growth.

 

The buyback is a function of the ROE. I expect them to close the TRS in the next 5 years which will consume some capital. My best guess is that they will buy back a low single digit percentage  every year, maybe 2-3% of of outstanding every yearly if things  go OK. The stock price will spent much of time between 1-1.3x Book. I don’t think we will see much multiple expansion in a soft market.

 

If the insurance market goes hard again, we have upside from above.

[Junior R]

13 minutes ago, Xerxes said:

Corner of Goldman Sachs, Berkshire and Fairfax 

 

Cherry picking March 30, 2020

Regardless of the cherry picking, Solomon tenure and moving away from a heavy balance sheet has been a blockbuster 

 

wow didn't realize GS gains

[Junior R]

once has to remember the reason why FFH traded under bvps in the past was due to the hedges , cat rate and investments ...right now there in another ball game hard to see a low P/B...if anything the party is just getting started there are so many hidden gems inside FFH that this could easily triple in next 5 years

[SafetyinNumbers]

2 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

expect a soft insurance market for much of the time  and a lumpy ~10% book value growth.

 

What’s the build up of the 10% (say 13.3% pre-tax ROE)? Given the coupon on the fixed income portfolio is 5%, it gets us to about a 10% pre-tax ROE. Assuming underwriting covered head office and leverage expenses, the equity portfolio would have to return 3.3% to meet the hurdle. That seems like a low bar given the state of fair value over carrying value and the high earnings yield of equity accounted for and consolidated positions. 
 

Tney also have the call options on Allied World and Odyssey minority interests which are very accretive. 

[Eldad]

51 minutes ago, SafetyinNumbers said:

What’s the build up of the 10% (say 13.3% pre-tax ROE)? Given the coupon on the fixed income portfolio is 5%, it gets us to about a 10% pre-tax ROE. Assuming underwriting covered head office and leverage expenses, the equity portfolio would have to return 3.3% to meet the hurdle. That seems like a low bar given the state of fair value over carrying value and the high earnings yield of equity accounted for and consolidated positions. 
 

Tney also have the call options on Allied World and Odyssey minority interests which are very accretive. 

You are assuming the combined ratio can never go way over 100. Writing insurance in Poland, Ukraine, S Africa etc with 3x leverage is not without risk. 

[Hamburg Investor]

7 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Yes,  but where does the money come from to average down in the Great Depression?

 

Historically it came from dividends (spiking after 1929) and inflation (deep deflation). 
 

With dividends reinvested and looking at real returns recovery happened as soon as 1936 (!) instead of 1954. It went down a bit below the recovery line after 1936 until 1944 again; in parts wwii was a major reason.

 

the outcome was over 3x in 1954 with dividends reinvested (real) and over 5 times (nominal) compared to the chart without dividends.

 

Of course that’s only history. And it’s without taxes, costs etc. 

 

 

 

Edited June 6 by Hamburg Investor

[Parsad]

8 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Yes,  but where does the money come from to average down in the Great Depression?

 

The Great Depression was a different animal...not that dissimilar to the GFC.  Once you were out of cash, you had to sell stuff at a 10 times P/E to buy stuff at a 7 times P/E...then sell the 7 times P/E stuff to buy 4 times P/E.  During the Great Depression, you probably got down to 1-3 times P/E and then essentially that was the floor.  At that point, you are often buying below net cash...far less than liquidation value. 

 

We started to see some stuff like that during the GFC...not quite below net cash...but huge discounts to liquidation value.  To the point where I was buying more corporate secured debt than even stocks!  This was also starting to happen during the Pandemic.  Fortunately, we never saw the depths of the Great Depression during the GFC or the Pandemic.  The fact that those two events happened within the same 20 year span as the Tech Bubble Collapse...an amazing era many of us cut our teeth on! 

 

The irony is that I would be far less comfortable if all three didn't happen!  And going back to Blake's strategy...waiting for such collapses also would not have made any significant difference, as I never would have known where and when the bottom would arrive.  The main point, to maximize returns during such periods, you had to be proactive...not sitting pat or on the sidelines...and managed to avoid leverage that would have hurt you as things collapsed.

 

Cheers!

[SafetyinNumbers]

7 hours ago, Eldad said:

You are assuming the combined ratio can never go way over 100. Writing insurance in Poland, Ukraine, S Africa etc with 3x leverage is not without risk. 

The amount of premiums in those locations are pretty small so they don’t have much impact on total profitability. Is your base assumption the combined ratio is going over 100 for a 5 year period? My bet is they will continue to be profitable over a 5 year period especially given they have a lot of reserves built over the past 5 years on the casualty side. If the CR stays above 100 for 5 years, I think we can assume safely that it’s a sector wide phenomenon which would mean a hard market is on its way. That should lead to multiple expansion once revenues accelerate which should mitigate the losses from a stock price perspective and ultimately from a BVPS perspective. 

[djokovic1]

The biggest thing the market misses is assuming that a soft market means Fairfax compounding will slow down. The 15%+ compounding is not dependent on hard / soft market i.e premium growth. If premium growth slows down (as it has been) the equity will go towards buybacks (as long as the share price is cheap). You win either way.

[73 Reds]

14 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

I don’t think FFH‘s book value will grow by 15% every year either. If we have learned one thing with FFH in particular is that things don’t move in a straight line. i sm fairly sure that FFH will trade below book value again, but not sure when. Almost certainly in the next 10 years and likely the next 5.

 

I think FFH is a decent bargain here, but insurance means catastrophes and soft market happen and both will put pressure on multiples.

 

I still have my ~$450 cost basis shares to remind me where we are coming from just a few years ago. 

Big picture - BV has grown 18%+/year since inception which includes soft markets.  What will set the next 10 years apart?  

[cwericb]

On 6/4/2026 at 12:17 AM, bearprowler6 said:

Serious question... how long are you both prepared to wait for Fairfax's share price to "go back to where it was" and/or "rerate and go to where it should be". Are you absolutely sure we have not entered another 7 lean year period? For different reasons this time however I don't think the possibility of this is zero. Would both of your spouses be also willing to wait it out? 

 

Prem always suggests that we think long term. Without a specific timeline or at least a range of times that statement has always struck me as meaningless.

 

Furthermore, Fairfax has been set up to outlast Prem. So decisions made today can really be made with a long term viewpoint in mind. This likely means that Fairfax's timeline does not align with the personal timelines of very many individual shareholders. As cwericb said...we are not getting any younger.

 

That is a great question, I just wish I had a great answer. I am now probably one of the oldest guys on this board now. As such, I have to factor that in.

 

But short answer, I have faith in Fairfax and it's management.  Fairfax is still a long term hold for me and over the last 20 years I have been rewarded for patiently holding. The company seems to be in a far better place than it was, say ten years ago and I also think the company is much more widely known and followed now than previously, which is a plus. 

[Jaygo]

I would assume the buybacks are absolutely ripping right now. If you look at the buyback kings like AutoZone it was steady buybacks for 25 years.

 

It is conceivable that were under 20 million this year and much lower share count a few years out so if this process has basically just started within the past 5 years we are in for a show. Good things take time.

 

We may bicker about value, ROE, wives and performance but the thought of FFH at 15 million shares outstanding feels pretty good if you look at AZO since 1998. The kicker is that AZO has taken on a lot of debt but I feel Fairfax will handle this better so the result could potentially be more impressive. FFH 10k anyone?

 

[Junior R]

10 minutes ago, cwericb said:

 

That is a great question, I just wish I had a great answer. I am now probably one of the oldest guys on this board now. As such, I have to factor that in.

 

But short answer, I have faith in Fairfax and it's management.  Fairfax is still a long term hold for me and over the last 20 years I have been rewarded for patiently holding. The company seems to be in a far better place than it was, say ten years ago and I also think the company is much more widely known and followed now than previously, which is a plus. 

if FFH was a 500b dollar company then I might be worried its still under $100b..55b or less with so many hidden gems inside 

[Junior R]

6 hours ago, Parsad said:

 

The Great Depression was a different animal...not that dissimilar to the GFC.  Once you were out of cash, you had to sell stuff at a 10 times P/E to buy stuff at a 7 times P/E...then sell the 7 times P/E stuff to buy 4 times P/E.  During the Great Depression, you probably got down to 1-3 times P/E and then essentially that was the floor.  At that point, you are often buying below net cash...far less than liquidation value. 

 

We started to see some stuff like that during the GFC...not quite below net cash...but huge discounts to liquidation value.  To the point where I was buying more corporate secured debt than even stocks!  This was also starting to happen during the Pandemic.  Fortunately, we never saw the depths of the Great Depression during the GFC or the Pandemic.  The fact that those two events happened within the same 20 year span as the Tech Bubble Collapse...an amazing era many of us cut our teeth on! 

 

The irony is that I would be far less comfortable if all three didn't happen!  And going back to Blake's strategy...waiting for such collapses also would not have made any significant difference, as I never would have known where and when the bottom would arrive.  The main point, to maximize returns during such periods, you had to be proactive...not sitting pat or on the sidelines...and managed to avoid leverage that would have hurt you as things collapsed.

 

Cheers!

if you have not used margin at that point you could just take 10% to 30% margin to also juice returns ...but like you said trade the 10pe for 7 pe or 4 pe or even 1 pe will probably get you in a better spot ...might even give you opportunity for double of wealth 

[SafetyinNumbers]

51 minutes ago, djokovic1 said:

The biggest thing the market misses is assuming that a soft market means Fairfax compounding will slow down. The 15%+ compounding is not dependent on hard / soft market i.e premium growth. If premium growth slows down (as it has been) the equity will go towards buybacks (as long as the share price is cheap). You win either way.

Mr. Market Structure doesn’t care about returns, he cares about revenue growth. Then investors who do care about returns but think the market is efficient use analogs to predict forward returns. Of course, they could be right, but the odds seem really low which is especially true when the timeline is extended. 

[nwoodman]

4 minutes ago, djokovic1 said:

The biggest thing the market misses is assuming that a soft market means Fairfax compounding will slow down. The 15%+ compounding is not dependent on hard / soft market i.e premium growth. If premium growth slows down (as it has been) the equity will go towards buybacks (as long as the share price is cheap). You win either way.

This is the right way to look at it. They’ve made it clear that Fairfax is a capital allocation machine, with per-share value creation as the primary objective. Float is an important source of leverage, and the fact that its cost has turned significantly negative is a real bonus (and credit to Andy), but it is secondary to where that capital is deployed, and it is far from their only source of capital.

 

Give it time and it will work because, when capital is allocated rationally, the economics are difficult to escape. For a company like Fairfax, particularly in the current environment, short-term share price signalling is a very poor indicator of future returns.

 

I would go a step further and say I am arguably more bullish on the next generation than many others. One of Fairfax’s greatest strengths is that its mistakes have been visible, painful and well documented. The scars from the hedging years, overconfidence in macro calls and periods of excessive complexity are not hidden away, they are worn almost like war medals. In a good sense, they have become institutional knowledge. That leaves me more confident that the next generation will focus on disciplined underwriting, rational capital allocation and per-share value creation rather than trying to prove how clever they are.

 

Anyone who has had the pleasure of cornering Peter Clarke after an exhaustive AGM session, only to find him still willing to engage thoughtfully and answer candid questions, will know what I mean. The same applies to Brian Bradstreet and Kleven Sava, who seem perfectly happy to keep discussing fixed income long after most shareholders have left Roy Thomson Hall. In my experience, that attitude extends across all of the leadership team. It’s a tough gig, insurance is brutal and capital allocation is unforgiving, but they genuinely love their work!

 

What stands out is not that they always have the right answers. It is that they appear genuinely curious, intellectually honest and deeply engaged in the craft of capital allocation. They will make mistakes, every allocator does. Ultimately, each investor has to decide for themselves whether management deserves their trust. I have come to the conclusion that I would rather own a company run by rational people playing a long game than one that simply provides comforting answers in the short term. Everyone’s mileage differs, that’s what makes a market