Parsad

From his comments on TW, I'm guessing it was a bet on Tom, as well as the fact that there is a discrepancy in thermal unit value of North American gas relative to all other forms of energy. Cheers!

True. Don't know. I guess we'll have to ask him at some point. ;D Cheers!

Yes, great name! Cheers!

That could be it. Roughly the shares he owns that seems to create the difference between the other directors. Cheers!

I was so busy running around that I barely had a chance to talk to Mohnish. I'll see him in Omaha, and I'll talk to him quite a bit over there. Cheers!

Patrick Byrne returns to Overstock.com after some cardiac issues possibly related to cancer treatments earlier in his life: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/patrick-byrne-returns-helm-overstock-130000915.html I'm glad Jonathan will be added to the board. Good to see him at our dinner this year as well! Cheers!

Always funny. While he won handily, there's always a few who need to make their point...Prem receives less votes than any other director. http://www.fairfax.ca/news/press-releases/press-release-details/2013/Fairfax-Financial-Holdings-Limited-Result-of-Voting-for-Directors-at-Annual-Shareholders-Meeting/default.aspx Idiots! The man has made you money hand over fist for 27 years, is a superb leader and community role model. Sell your damn shares if you want another CEO or are unhappy. Cheers!

Pretty much what Prem has said for the last three years...the deleveraging process is going to slow everyone the hell down, and there is probably going to be some price deflation as commodities and demand slow. On the other end of spectrum are the others saying that inflation is down the road, and whether statistics show it or not, some price inflation has occurred in the recent past due to the monetary printing press. Does anyone really know? ;D Cheers!

Watsa didn't directly compare dividends with buybacks. He was a little cagey in his answer and implied that there may be higher yielding opportunities than the buybacks are currently offering. On the question on dividends, he went into why he prefers to give out dividends. He said that he collects a flat salary of $600K and any performance bonus is received as a dividend. He believes that this is an egalitarian way to treat all shareholders. Looks like the dividend is here to stay-- even though they are counting on the "kindness of strangers". He's talked about the dividends alot in the past. It's not just for him, but the many employees and long-term shareholders who have invested a considerable portion of their net worth into the company. It allows them to hold on to their shares, even pass them to another generation, without having to sell them in return for income. Cheers!

Hi Shawn, I think many of us felt the same way the first time we met the people we admire. Glad you enjoyed your trip, and we look forward to seeing you at many more! Cheers!

LOL! I guess I'm going to have to be very careful what I say from now on. Cheers!

For some reason the pictures won't load...I'll have to figure it out on the weekend. Cheers!

Whew! I'm truly exhausted this year. Somehow I got a cold the Friday before the event, and it continued to deteriorate through the week. I was running on fumes by the end of this trip...still in Toronto and going home tomorrow after recuperating a bit today! I'm providing some of the tidbits, as I was running around too much to take notes, so I hope Norm, Alan, etc (amongst many others) can share their observations when they get some time. The events started off with Norm's "Ben Graham" Dinner on Tuesday night. I would say about 20 attendees...double what we had the first time we did the "Fairfax Financial Shareholder's Dinner" at the same restaurant (Joe Badali's), so it is well on it's way! Wayne Cadwallader, formerly of Hamblin-Watsa and currently at Elkhorn Partners, came with me. Plenty of discussion about investing, including the days when Fairfax made their LVLT debt deal years ago. Next was the Value Investing Conference, which unfortunately I could not attend. Perhaps others can share some of the conference ideas and notes. I believe about 150 people attended and heard Tom Russo, Jeremy Grantham, Tim McElvaine, Gary Shilling, Rob Robotti, Francis Chou and more! The bus ride to William Ashley and Sporting Life were actually worth it from a shareholder's perspective, as we enjoyed some of the finest chocolates in the world at Teuscher's Chocolates, and had a good discussion on Sporting Life's operational methods with their corporate recruiting manager who was our host at their store. Alnesh bought a new house recently, so he spent some money at William Ashley and had the wares shipped to Vancouver. I spent a small fortune on Teuscher Chocolates, as you can see in the pictures! Norm's Pre-Dinner gathering in the York Station bar at the Royal York was a very intimate affair. Packed, with ears enraptured listening to Francis Chou and his guests Brian Bradstreet & Tom Russo. I'm sure that alone was quite a session and attendees were quite lucky! Our dinner this year had about 145 people. It was a beautiful ballroom as you can see from the pictures, and we had Dr. Kevin Glasgow (CEO of the CCFC) in attendance once again. Other speakers that night were David Polonitza & Andrew Berger from AB Value LLP, and Ben Raybould from Arlington Value. We had a terrific buffet dinner, the silent auction did very well with wonderful prizes, including a copy of Mosaic that went for $1,000, and the night was a rousing success. The grand finale was Prem bringing in about 20 people this year. We could only fit 10 on stage! The panel included: - Francis Chou, Chou Funds - Mohnish Pabrai, Pabrai Funds - Robbie Boucher, Bank of Ireland - Mark Bertrand, MEGABrands - Bill McMorrow, Kennedy-Wilson - Jonathan Johnson, Overstock.com - Madhaven Menon, Thomas Cook India - Bill Gregson, The Brick - Sam Mitchell, Hamblin-Watsa - Ramaswamy Athappan, Fairfax Asia - Paul Rivett, Fairfax Financial After the panel left around 11pm, poor Francis was corraled near the entrance of the ballroom by about 20 people, and I did not find him until 11:40pm...a new record! That was swiftly broken by Tim McElvaine, who was surrounded by about another 10 people questioning him about Rainmaker...he did not get out until 12:10am! By the way, you guys should not only thank Prem for all of this, but Paul Rivett, Francis Chou, Vinodh Loganadhan and Pat Hios! Those four really help me alot and shoulder much of the success from the dinner and events. All my thanks to them, as well as my cousin Alnesh, our directors Andrew Cooke and Glen Rollins, our major donors, and the other volunteers who help out! We raised about $17,600 for the CCFC, which could not happen without your generous support and friendship! The exact final tally will be known after I receive the final bill from the Royal York! ;D The next day was the Fairfax AGM. The crowds were much larger this year. I would have to say at least 900 people plus! Plenty of booths in Roy Thomson Hall...a very jovial mood everywhere! Prem came into the hall and was trying to shake everyone's hand. Crazy to see, but he's learned from the master that you make sure you see as many people as you can. The presentation was very good and should be on the website soon enough. Unfortunately, after that I was manning a table provided to us by Templeton Press. They had donated several hundred copies of Sir John's "The Laws of Life" which were to be given away to shareholders, and any donations to the CCFC were welcome. We raised about $1,400 more! Thanks very much to Lauren Templeton and the Templeton Press for their generosity! Again, hope some of you guys will share your notes...it would be greatly appreciated! Lastly, the MPIC Fund's AGM had a very nice turnout. I would say about 50 people were there, and it was great to meet many of our partners, friends, new guests and a host of young managers. It was a fantastic time, but I was ready to drop dead by the end of it with my throat pretty raw! Glad I don't have to talk for a few days at all! So thank you very much for helping us raise about $19,000 for the CCFC, supporting all of the events and sharing your friendship and insights! Truly becoming a spectacular event. I don't know of any CEO who trots out the executives like Prem, and those executives do it with a single complaint...exhausted, they are there to serve you...Fairfax shareholders should be insanely proud of these people and their company! Cheers!

Great pictures Lance...much appreciated! Cheers!

I read articles like this which only confirm my bias against Ivy League, Wall Street, idiots! Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/big-investors-emerge-bitcoin-gets-191114595.html

I was outside by the book table during the entire Q&A, so was Tom actually present? Cheers!

I'm going to use reverse psychology...I don't think it will hit tangible book next week. ;D Now let's see what happens. Cheers!

Doesn't seem to have anything to do with the company's financials. Could be the partner was giving inside information on HLF. Cheers!

NormR wrote an article about Francis 2012 Letter in his Strategy Lab column for the Globe & Mail. Cheers! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/strategy-lab/value-investing/jolt-from-the-blue-francis-chous-candid-letter-to-fund-investors/article10821482/

It will never pass. Don't they realize that banks have more capital today than necessary, and are reluctant to lend it out because they are required to hold excess capital? You want banks to be rock-solid, crack down on lending products, require minimum downpayments of 20% for residential property with maximum 25 year amortizations, and reduce off-balance sheet leverage. Cheers!

We learned our lesson when we were with MSN. Never rely on a 3rd party! Over time the site will be updated, but we will keep it completely independent, so that we archive our own data. We're very happy with Paul Clerc at Watermelon Webworks. Little downtime, if ever, and the speed is good. Paul and his team will help us update the site over time. But it does exactly what it is meant to do, and like you all said...if it ain't broke! Cheers!

Yes, it won't affect a great number of people, but it kind of completely obliterates what a free-market capitalist society is fundamentally based on. I don't know about Romney, but I do know that Eric is the one who absorbed all of the risk. He could have very well lost everything...he accepted the risk, and then he received the reward. Now Eric's IRA should be taxed if he passes it on to his children, but I don't understand how it could be taxed in his hands or his spouse's. I would much rather they increase the estate tax on assets outside of the principal residence, rather than tax someone's IRA or other retirement account. Silly rule and very disappointing! Cheers!

Ok FFHWatcher...you win! I'll email you and the person with the room right now, so that you can coordinate and change the room name. Congratulations...you saved about $60-80 and the money goes to a good cause! Cheers!

Hey, I'm a liberal-socialist from Canada, but I think this is poorly implemented...I would expect a massive outcry, but the problem is that there probably aren't enough accounts over $3M to get the right response. It's not annual income where your tax level could be adjusted regularly, and you expect the fluctuations. These accounts were created for a specific reason, where investor's could plan their retirement savings over the next 10, 20, 30 plus years, and suddenly they become taxable above $3M. I don't think this is fair, and the amount seems quite arbitrary and unconstitutional. Why don't they cap divorce settlements at $3M then? Cheers!

Very difficult to predict. But I suspect we've bottomed, as there is a real transition happening where industrial energy use is changing to natural gas. There are enough projects, ideas, etc happening, where you are starting to get some equilibrium between supply and demand at a higher, more natural level. Too much supply for gas to go back up to $7-8 right now, but not enough where $5-5.50 is quite realistic. Cheers!