Grenville

http://news.yahoo.com/wells-fargo-boss-talks-bank-174027047.html —Warren Buffett is your biggest shareholder. (His conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, holds an 8 percent stake in Wells, about $14 billion worth, according to financial data provider FactSet.) Tell us about that. He reads everything. One time I talked to him on a Monday, we'd put out our 10-Q (a quarterly financial report) on a Friday, and he said he spent all day Saturday reading it cover to cover. I said, 'Warren, you do that often?' He said, 'Oh, I love Q's.' He was asking me about some esoteric asset — I was blown away. Interesting stuff! Thanks for the link!

Awesome! Thanks for the tip. I found it on Fox. Here's the link: http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/2165570838001/warren-buffett-housing-market-is-getting-better/ In it he mentions talking to Brian Moynihan on the phone a couple of times during the preferred deal and a few times afterward. He goes on to mention visiting Charlotte to give a talk to some BofA employees. Anyone know if Warren's done this at other investments like Wells Fargo, Amex or others? I think it's great that Warren went and BofA is interested in listening to his thoughts and ideas.

Hi Redskin, Do you know where I can find Buffett talking about a trip to meet with BAC employees? It's very interesting if he did.

The preferreds count towards capital, debt doesn't. I do agree that a div increase might pop the share up more, but they are improving the earnings power by getting rid of expensive after tax prefs.

Nice! Glad to see them retire the prefs and the buyback. 10.5bln is a nice number!

Cool! Thanks for the link. I was bummed about google pulling the plug on their offering.

I'm enjoying the discussion re: SD. Thank you all for sharing your opinions. I'm happy to see a resolution to the proxy fight. I wonder how much Fairfax helped move the fight to the negotiating table.

Good stuff. from WSJ: "Berkshire's BNSF Railway to Test Switch to Natural Gas" http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324539404578342540494619344.html

March 8 in the evening. From the Q4 conference call: "Then before I pass it back to Prem, I'd like to remind everyone that our Annual General Meeting will be held on Thursday, April the 11th, at 9:30 a.m. at Roy Thomson Hall. Details will be in the annual report on the last page, which will be published on March 8 in the evening. So back to you, Prem."

Merger completed: LEUCADIA NATIONAL CORPORATION AND JEFFERIES GROUP, INC. MERGER TO BE EFFECTIVE MARCH 1, 2013 NEW YORK, February 28, 2013 – Leucadia National Corporation (NYSE: LUK) and Jefferies Group, Inc. (NYSE: JEF) today announced that the stockholders of Jefferies Group, Inc. and the shareholders of Leucadia National Corporation overwhelmingly approved the merger between the two companies pursuant to which Jefferies’ stockholders will receive 0.81 of a share of Leucadia common stock for each share of Jefferies common stock they held and that the merger will be consummated effective March 1, 2013. In connection with the merger, Jefferies is also converting to a limited liability company, Jefferies Group LLC, which will be a subsidiary of Leucadia and will continue to be an SEC reporting company, regularly filing annual, quarterly, and periodic financial reports. Richard Handler, in addition to continuing in his role as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Jefferies, will become the Chief Executive Officer of Leucadia and one of its Directors. Brian Friedman, in addition to continuing in his role as Chairman of the Executive Committee of Jefferies, will become Leucadia’s President and one of its Directors. Joseph Steinberg, in addition to continuing to work full-time as an executive of Leucadia, will become Chairman of the Board of Leucadia. Ian Cumming will retire as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Leucadia but will continue in his role as a director of Leucadia. Leucadia will continue its 35-year track record of acquiring and owning businesses and investments and will be able to additionally leverage the knowledge base, opportunity flow and execution capabilities of the combined company. Jefferies will continue to operate in a manner consistent with its historical business model and remain a client-focused, conservatively capitalized, and full-service global investment banking firm.

Just noticed this. Thanks for posting! Enjoyed this: The best advice he’s ever been given? “Life’s very short. None of us is getting out of here alive, therefore we should go for it. Don’t try to play it safe because there is no safety. So follow your heart, follow your passions. Life will be a grand adventure and it will be a lot of fun.”

Congratulations & Happy Anniversary! It's hard to say where I'd be without the message board. It has allowed me to meet people who gave me the courage to follow my passion! Thank you.

Interesting article. Thank you for posting it.

Glad to see Southeastern out there fighting for their IV. Thought this in the letter was interesting: "There are materially superior alternatives to the proposed transaction, and we hope that in addition to supporting one of the alternatives, Michael Dell would participate. If given the option, other existing shareholders could provide as much or more equity than Michael Dell currently proposes to do, which would lead to superior levels of equity contribution and more financial flexibility to serve Dell’s customers and to grow." I assume he's referring to others including Fairfax.

Would someone be kind enough to explain what CM meant by the above? He referred to how when the bought the small newspapers at very low prices, they got a free option that if there was a foreclosure boom they would get extra returns from the public notice advertising that goes with it. He also said they didn't buy those papers at the time with the embedded option in mind. It's something that they got lucky with. Essentially my read on his response was that they didn't consider that option at all or give it any value when they bought the papers.

He also referred to Mohnish last year when answering a question about energy or commodities. I can't remember the specifics.

Good number of topics covered in his tweets from yesterday: (from the BYD thread)

Nice little acquisition. Probably too early to say, but it looks like a nice holding company strategy of buying good businesses and letting them run independently in India's growth markets. Thomas Cook India Acquires 74% Stake In Ikya Human Capital Solutions http://www.rttnews.com/2051165/thomas-cook-india-acquires-74-stake-in-ikya-human-capital-solutions.aspx?type=in&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=sitemap "Thomas Cook (India) Ltd. has signed an investment agreement to acquire a 74 percent interest in Ikya Human Capital Solutions Pvt. Ltd.,a human resources staffing solutions company in India, for consideration of Rs.256 crore ($.47 million)." "Managing Director Madhavan Menon said, "As one of the largest integrated travel services companies in the country, it is our strategy to invest in partnerships that broaden our business services platform to increase shareholder value. Ikya's wide range of HR services and sterling reputation, offer us a wonderful opportunity to extend the bouquet of travel, financial and HR services we offer to corporates across India." He added, "Post the acquisition, Ikya would remain a stand-alone independently managed entity supervised by Thomas Cook (India), with the assistance of Fairbridge, and we are confident that their management team headed by Ajit Isaac will continue to grow its business for the benefit of all stakeholders. We will continue to focus and invest in the growth of our traditional travel-related businesses."

some stock holdings are held as total return swaps and won't show up in the 13Fs. See Odyssey Re's NAIC filings

Thanks for posting. I finally got around to watching this today. Interesting to see how unemployment will be impacted by automation.

My two cents on Richard Handler's pay: 1. Read Handler's 10 page letter during the misinformation attack in Nov 2011. 2. Brian Friedman and Handler devised and executed a plan that saved Knight Capital and grossed the firm a huge mark to market profit. 3. Friedman and Handler requested their bonus to be 0 in 2011. 4. For 2012 they asked for their bonus to be reduced. 5. Joseph Steinberg & Ian Cumming are both on the compensation committee for JEF. 2012 10K: According to the Pay for Performance program for Mr. Handler, his bonus should have been $8,116,669, but Mr. Handler volunteered to reduce his bonus compensation to $5,000,000, for a reduction of $3,116,669. The subcommittee of the Compensation Committee accepted Mr. Handler’s proposal and awarded him a $5,000,000 cash bonus for fiscal 2012. According to the Pay for Performance program for Mr. Friedman, his bonus should have been $6,087,502, but Mr. Friedman volunteered to reduce his bonus compensation to $3,750,000, for a reduction of $2,337,502, which was proportionately commensurate with Mr. Handler’s voluntary reduction. The subcommittee of the Compensation Committee accepted Mr. Friedman’s proposal and awarded him a $3,750,000 cash bonus for fiscal 2012. 2011 proxy: "In early 2011, the Committee established a 2011 Pay for Performance program for Mr. Handler that included a Base Salary, Cash Bonus and Long-Term Equity Incentive. According to the Pay for Performance program for Mr. Handler, his bonus would have been $4,879,565, but Mr. Handler requested that the Committee exercise its negative discretion to reduce this award to zero. "

The warrants, which expire on January 16, 2019, entitle the owner to buy Bank of America common stock at $13.30. The warrants today trade around $5.25. However, the structure of the warrants is unusual (to the warrant-holder’s benefit) in that the exercise price is adjusted downward each time Bank of America pays a quarterly dividend over 1 cent. In addition, the number of warrants adjusts upward each time a quarter dividend is paid over 1 cent. So every time BofA boosts its dividend—which we expect to happen regularly over the coming five years--the exercise price on the warrants will fall and the number of warrants the holder owns will go up. The formulas to calculate the lowered exercise price and increased number of shares per warrant are somewhat complicated, and require assumptions of the company’s earnings, payout ratio, its stock price between now and January, 2019. However, we conservatively model that the exercise price will fall below $11 per share (from $13.30 now), and the number of shares per warrant will raise over 1.2 from 1.0. We do not believe investors are accounting for these quirky but investor-friendly adjustments in their current valuation of the warrants. The secret on the A warrants is getting out. I'm sure we'll see them move more now.

Fairfax increases stake in SD to 32.7mln shares (12/31/12) http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/915191/000118143112067662/xslF345X03/rrd365127.xml Fairfax purchases loan with warrants to Columbia Energy Resources (1/18/13) "On January 18, 2013, Odyssey Reinsurance Company ("Odyssey"), a subsidiary of Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited ("Fairfax"), purchased $105,000 aggregate principal amount of the Issuer's 15% secured promissory notes due January 18, 2014 and warrants (the "Warrants") to purchase 8,381,725 shares of the Common Stock of the Issuer for cash consideration of $100,000. The Warrants may be exercised at any time, in whole or in part, at an exercise price of $0.01 per share of Common Stock." http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/915191/000118143113004126/xslF345X03/rrd367368.xml From their website: "Colombia Energy Resources, Inc. (“CERX”) is a metallurgical coal exploration and mining company operating in the Republic of Colombia, South America. We are building an integrated coal resource and processing company to extract and process high-value coal products for export. We have acquired coal deposits, are operating and building met coal mines and coke plants, and plan to become a leading consolidator in the Colombian met coal market. We control four deposits with ten coal mining concessions covering almost 12,000 hectares (~29,600 acres). Preliminary geological analysis suggests low and mid-volatility hard coking coal in our core seams.1 We have active mining operations at our “Ruku” mining complex and an extensive exploration program underway on core properties to delineate resources and facilitate mine planning.1 We also plan to acquire additional concessions and mining operations and are evaluating several additional properties in Boyacá, Cundinamarca, Santander and Norte Santander. We operate in Colombia through our wholly-owned subsidiary Colombia Clean Power S.A.S." http://colombiaenergyresources.com

Around the 20min mark on the CC they clarified the status of the reserves for rep & warrants: Q412 total - 19bln BONY - 8.5bln GSE -6bln remain - 4.5bln

That's pretty much my point. Who has a music collection on CDs and hasn't ripped them already? Unless they don't want the digital version of them, then this Amazon feature is of no use. It would be convenient I suppose if you were buying new music, but I wouldn't pay more for this feature. Not that I've purchased a CD in many years anyway. My kids have lists of songs they want to buy, not albums. And Most of us old folks already own all the music we want or need (I've already got 3000 or so of my favorite songs on my ipod). Who exactly buys CDs? This may not change your opinion on the service, but I forgot the feature of scanning your itunes library and adding those songs automatically to your Amazon Cloud Player in 256kbps. It's a nice feature to backup your music in the cloud and download it in high quality. "In July, Amazon added new scan and match technology that enables customers to import music into Amazon Cloud Player by scanning their iTunes and Windows Media Player libraries and matching songs on their computers to Amazon’s music catalog. All matched songs – even music purchased from iTunes or ripped from CDs – are upgraded to high-quality 256 Kbps audio and are made available instantly in customers’ Cloud Player libraries, making it even easier for customers to enjoy their entire music collection anywhere."