Parsad

That's true. But I think Eric is probably 1 in 100,000,000. The only guys that come close to those returns are startups that take off in a short period of time or daytraders who shot the lights out on a couple of stocks. It's not even likely that Buffett, in his best ten year span in his personal account, was doing what Eric did over the last ten years. And if you ask Eric, I'm sure there were plenty of restless nights when he was thinking, "Have I fu*ked my family over by putting all of our nest egg into one idea?" But he made the bet and his temperament allowed him to get through it. Amazing story, and I'm just proud he did it on my message board. It's a story I'll tell for ages! Alnesh, Andrew and I were talking about it again this morning! Cheers!

We told Eric to start a fund years ago. He doesn't want to. Once he hits a billion, he's going to put all of his money in T-bills and sell paintings on the side of the road for ten bucks each as a starving artist! ;D That's his dream! Cheers!

Yup. BAC, SD, FFH, LUK, CTL, WFC and on Monday I bought a bunch of April 5, 2013 BAC $12 Calls at 17 cents each...52 cents today...I expect 80-90 cents when the announcements come this week and next. Cheers!

By the way, someone should be doing a case study on Eric. That's arguably, the greatest investment results over a 10-year period I've seen. Eric, you should come to our dinner in Toronto and speak! Cheers!

It is only possible because of this board, but anyways here's what Fidelity is telling me for the RothIRA -- they have, as of the end of January, been tracking my performance for exactly 10 years: Eric, you've only achieved 73% cumulative over ten years? You'll never be a centamilliionaire! ;D Cheers!

And, posting on cornerofberkshireandfairfax... I kinda like that thought What I'd like to see is Eric become a centimillionare over the next few years, and have him continue to post on here. Then every time someone like Harry Long comes on here and tells us how we are anchored to our old ideas, all we have to do is show a picture of Eric sitting in his Netjets plane! ;D Cheers!

It's not undervalued, but it is cheaper than a year ago as CBRL has gone up. Growth at SNS has been somewhat flat, but much of the industry has also been the same. With that much captive capital, I would have thought he would have picked more compelling and even cheaper businesses, rather than go after CBRL. Nonetheless, he's got a lot of capital that he can do some damage with. Cheers!

So I guess if any of us board members only buys some relative tiny stake in a really tiny small cap company, he/she might be required to file at least some form. Yes, you would have to file if you own 5% or more of an issuer...regardless of dollar amount or size of company...it's 10% in Canada. Eric would not have to file a report if he did have $100M, $500M or even a billion. What happens is that when you start to get into those amounts, usually people create corporations, trusts, etc that hold the assets, and then they do have to file a 13-F as an institution. If Eric holds the assets in his own personal account and name, outside of any sort of entity, then he would not have to file anything. The brokerage institution probably reports these accounts to the SEC and IRS regardless, so they would know who has how much money in what...Forbes would not know that. So no worries Eric. Your secret will be safe with us, as you fly around on your Marquis Jet Card, surfing the internet at 20,000 feet. Cheers!

We could be in for some surprises tomorrow...earlier than expected! I can't imagine why this discussion would be happening, unless some banks were approved for substantially larger capital payouts through dividends or buybacks than generally assumed. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-07/banks-said-to-weigh-defying-fed-with-dividend-disclosures.html?cmpid=yhoo

Yup. He's definitely one to watch and there is a story there to tell, but shareholders will have to watch their back as well and may end up with their own story to tell at some point. He'll be rich, but I choose not to partner with people like that. Mohnish said it best in his interview a little while ago..."Lose money, you lose nothing. Lose health, you lose something. Lose reputation, all is lost." Sardar has lost one aspect of his reputation...that he puts his shareholders ahead of himself...and that will not come back to him. Cheers!

Thanks alot Grenville! Faster than head office and right off the transcript...how great is this board. Cheers! Parsad, What do you see as the future returns on Fairfax from here? From your posts, is this a long-term buy and hold position for you? Thanks in advance. With the leverage they use, and their investment expertise, they can get 15% ROE going forward for at least another 10-15 years under the current team. Cheers!

Thanks alot Grenville! Faster than head office and right off the transcript...how great is this board. Cheers!

I was going to ask you--is it normally an early March deal? Seems like a week after Buffett's is normal? Hopefully someone reads this from head office and gives us an update. I hope it's this week...I'm really looking forward to it. Cheers!

Anyone know when Prem's letter and annual report are supposed to come out? Is it this week? Cheers!

Cachet. What does Hyundai have that Mercedes doesn't? Better margins! Cheers!

We haven't reached that conclusion. I believe Tim Cook has though...thus the cheaper iPhones they are developing. ;D All you have to do is look at PC, laptop, tablet, flat-screen television prices over time. Yes, you can come out with new technology and price it at much higher margins, but once the technology becomes universal, it begins to behave exactly like a commodity. I hope they are developing iWatches, and it's as innovative as the iPhone was, since margins on the watch should be spectacular. Cheers!

It's amazing how the media is used by analysts, managers, etc...be it for or against. Cheers!

We have a family friend that opened a franchise a few years ago and she's made apparently decently good cash flow, but she says it's not worth it. Finding help is too difficult and a good manager is basically impossible to find. She also had troubles with the company when the store computer went down. She couldn't just buy a new equivalent one for $300, but she had to buy the one from the company for $1200 and it was a crappy old machine. It's constant troubles for her. She's just working to pay off the debt and then be done with it. So like Parsad said, until you can find and keep a great manager you trust, it's going to be a lot of work. Morgan touched on something else I should have mentioned. Make sure the franchise agreement stipulations aren't onerous. The best franchises are the ones that emulate the same system across the chain, but allow flexibility with each owner and their regional customer base. There are many franchise agreements that are just crazy, and are completely to burnish the coffers of the parent company. Usually this means the franchisee is a grunt and long-term passive income is less likely. I would recommend talking to franchisees in chains you are interested in. Set up a coffee or take the owner out for lunch, and just ask him what his experience is like with the franchise...what he likes, dislikes, etc. Cheers!

You will have to be totally hands-on on the franchise for a while, until you find a good manager and train them right. I have a number of friends who run franchises, and it is never-ending. Once you find a good manager, then you start to see the passive income come in, but initially it's very time-consuming to get it up and going. Good help is hard to find, but once you do, they have to be incentivized to work hard for you. One my friends has done very well with Subway franchises on Vancouver Island. He's even got it now where he can monitor his employees from his laptop and cameras in the store. He's got a good manager in place, his retired parents help out a bit on the accounting and administrative side, and he's got some good passive income coming in between two stores and now trying to get a third one open. But there are definitely times when he has to be there and for long stretches. Cheers!

Hi Yours Truly, It was actually in the "Books" section, but because it wasn't about one specific book, I moved it here. Cheers!

No one said that DELL was a better investment idea...only that it was cheaper. There's herd behavior in virtually aspect of life...be it the general populace or value investing. You joined this board after others have been on it for years. Does that suggest that you are participating in herd behavior in any manner? Of course not. Ask yourself, could it be that more people owned BAC and AIG because the subject matter (large-cap stock with a ton of publicity) made it easier for people to investigate the business? Just because alot of people own something, makes it neither herd behavior or a good/bad investment. Cheers!

Herd behavior would have been buying it then, and selling it now. Cheers! I think he means contra-herd behavior (i.e., the herd behavior on this board). It is interesting to watch, especially when the market goes up and everyone starts talking about selling or how much cash they have, even when there are still some "deals" around. That example may of course be the correct behavior (though I'm still 100% in), but this phenomenon seems particularly extreme on Apple. Absolutely. What still surprises me is that even now, when value investors are actually buying, there is little analysis of Apple's business being discussed. Isn't " investment is its best when its businesslike" a corner of value investing? People look at Apple as a black box stock just as they did with financials. The herd moved into financials when there was enough social proof from Berkowitz, Buffet and others. Actually, several of us were into BAC before Buffett was and this was when Berkowitz was being touted as the next Bill Miller...blowing up his fund with risky investments in financials. There was no herd-like behavior on this board or any where else, because hardly anyone had done the analysis. All you have to do is go back and read the posts, and you'll find that you're incorrect about this. This was actually the same thing around Dell just a few months ago. No one, including the investing giants, wanted to touch the stock. If you also go back to 2009, you'll find that several people were buying GE at $7 and WFC at $9, shortly before Buffett came out and announced he was buying both...GE through preferreds and WFC equity. I think the majority of posters on here have actually done a pretty good job of analyzing investments, and have not needed any sort of social proof. The MBIA thread (and I do not own any) is another thread that pretty much makes most professional analysts look incompetent, as boardmembers on here tore apart the legal infrastructure that could or could not lead to insolvency at MBIA. It's quite an impressive thread! I think in general, posters on this board have shown a very businesslike attitude when it comes to investing...trusting their own analysis, their own instincts, as well as research...their own and others. Cheers!

I understand what you are saying about the $650 price, but I'm a little baffled by the swings on the board's feeling on Apple overall. In 2011-2012, I was interested in it at < 400, but there seemed to be a lot of negativity here, even though it was < 10 P/E less cash. Granted, now it is even cheaper on that basis (though not tons more), but the story wasn't/isn't that much different. In other words, I'm confused as to why there seems to be a lot more people bullish now versus the general "Apple's death is inevitable" feeling I got back then on fundamentals that were/are not hugely different. I do understand that there were a lot of better/more distracting deals at that time though, so perhaps that was it. Welcome to herd behavior. Herd behavior would have been buying it then, and selling it now. Cheers!

I understand what you are saying Eric. What I think it is, is if BAC has a substantial return of capital, then that means the valuation of the business should be more in line with "normal" large banks that it competes with...JPM, WFC, USB, etc. In other words, the bank's position is somewhat restored as the government also believes that the legacy issues no longer create a discount to tangible book, or even to book for that matter. Cheers!

Hi Folks, Please do not put copyrighted books and material downloads on here for sharing. We don't want to infringe on anyone's intellectual property. If you want a downloaded book...buy it, rather than downloading from others. And I understand people wanting to share, but there is a reason why property rights are protected. Thanks!