Parsad

I believe you are thinking of Kyle Bass Yup, that's who it was. Thanks. Cheers!

Toronto, if you don't mind, how much did it cost to order a season pass on Appletv...say for Walking Dead or if you've ordered it...Game of Thrones? And do you pay for cable at all, or how does it work? Do you stream everything? Like 60 Minutes...did that cost anything to stream? Sorry for the questions, but I'm thinking about getting one too, and wanted to know how comparable the prices are to cable. I pay about $250 a month with Telus for high speed internet, landline local & long distance, and full cable with pretty much all the channels, including certain Asian cultural channels. Cheers!

Yes, Nalini is just as nice as Prem, and their children are just like the parents. Very nice family! Cheers!

Well, Moynihan will have his chance. For now, I'm happy for him to build up to a fortress balance sheet. I just wish he were a bit more charismatic -- more Dimon-like. But that's a very small criticism. I think it was that lack of charisma that caused so many to miss the boat on BAC. They were all on the Pandit Love Boat! ;D Cheers!

Terrific article by Andy Xie! I couldn't agree more with his analysis, and I believe that at some point, this will be the trigger. Incidentally, doesn't Michael Burry have a huge bet on Japan's yen weakening as well, or am I mistaken on that? Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/46863460

Bloomberg discusses Netjet's China expansion. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-26/buffett-s-netjets-forms-china-venture-on-business-jet-demand.html

Peter emailed me and said while he appreciates the sentiment, please do not post about him. I told him to take a break for a few days and reconsider coming back. Cheers!

General information for anyone wondering: Peter Burke messaged me and said that he did not feel this forum was the right venue to express himself, and if I can terminate his account and delete all his posts. I did not boot him out, but obliged his request. Cheers!

CNBC article on housing. Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/46855457

You're right. Used this on the fly http://www.epx.com.br/ctb/hp12c.php , which gives the wrong answer whereas this http://epx.com.br/ctb/hp12c.php gives the correct one. In case anyone else is using it. Ok, I actually don't know what is going on here. I just used http://www.epx.com.br/ctb/hp12c.php in a different browser to my regular browser (Chrome) and it gives the correct answer 5.2 and when I run it in Chrome it gives 9.7, so it is either Chrome or the cash that is causing issues. I realize it is off-topic, but just in case anyone else is using (this) online calculator(s). MrB...I think you can afford to buy a $20 calculator, or use the one on your iPhone! ;D See you in a few weeks, by the way. Cheers!

I've changed the title, but why are you being an ass now?

They could spend alot less on capex actually. They probably spend about 30% too much at the very least. It would fit into BH, but I would prefer if FFH or MKL had bought it. The main reason being if an owner is giving up their company, they want someone taking over who isn't going to eat up a good chunk of the future retained earnings from the shares they get in return. That is also one of the drawbacks of BH's compensation plan, especially if that $10M cap is ever removed. No owner is going to sell their business to them for stock, since Sardar is going to get more and more of the earnings over time. He's going to have to buy businesses for cash if that cap is ever removed. Cheers!

I understand what Peter was trying to say. My point was that he didn't have to say it the way he did. He could have easily said "Sanj, I think the title may be misleading, because he actually didn't lose any money on the sale." I would not have uttered a word. Cheers!

How is that my definition? Icahn owned the stock...owned a ton of it...and then sold it because he lost the proxy fight. Now the company is making a fortune. Where exactly in that do you think your facetious comment fits in? where exactly did he "lose" money? he sold last year at about break even to his cost basis. now the stock is up. when you sell a stock and it later goes up, did you lose "big"? He probably took the proceeds of that sale and made money with it. I know that CI is part of the Cabal that is "out to get" Ostck and Fairfax, but I think the headline is something that would fit on Business Insider and not an investor board which aspires to big ideas. Well that's your problem. I've never said Icahn is part of any cabal. That's your paranoia! A few weeks ago, I posted an article on how John Paulsen sold all of his BAC stock before the recent rise. Do I have an axe to grind with Paulsen? No. I put the article on there because I thought it was interesting how a small movie studio is now making such a killing, and he was driving a proxy to remove management because he thought they were incompetent and incapable of increasing shareholder value. Now let me ask you since you seem so damn defensive of Icahn...was he wrong on management? Cheers!

An update. Frisch did the right thing finally and they've reached a deal with Golden Corral. Golden Corral will exercise their right of first refusal and buy back the restaurants. No idea how much they sold for, but it's a great thing for Frisch. Now they can focus on the core burger restaurant business which is terrific and a cash cow. Not sure why companies always feel like they HAVE to do something. Generally, they end up ruining a good thing. This would be a terrific business for someone like Berkshire, Fairfax or Markel to buy...probably way too small for Berkshire, but would have been a terrific buy for Fairfax or Markel. The price has risen now, but someone should have approached them a long time ago when it was selling at $19-20. The Frisch/Maier family have no one to run this thing once Craig retires, and they do not know what to do with the excess cash flows since they have a relatively limited territory to expand. The restaurants are all in pretty good shape, and they are very well known in their markets. All that excess cash could have been put to good use in the hands of someone like Hamblin-Watsa or Tom Gaynor, and the Maier family probably would have liked the ability to take shares in either of those companies for succession planning, while still allowed to run the business. Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/frischs-announces-golden-corral-franchisings-200500816.html

How is that my definition? Icahn owned the stock...owned a ton of it...and then sold it because he lost the proxy fight. Now the company is making a fortune. Where exactly in that do you think your facetious comment fits in?

I would think that is pretty accurate Peter. Not too many well-known female analysts, and she was pretty smart and had a very good idea how to value Berkshire. Cheers!

That being said, I guess that means he made some money for his shareholders as well. Of course. And it won't be long before he is by far the largest shareholder. At that point, the name change would actually be suitable. ;D Maybe the compensation agreement should have come before the name change. Cheers!

Interesting NY Times article on Goldman, Copper River and Overstock.com. Cheers! http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/business/goldman-sachs-denies-claims-it-led-to-copper-rivers-demise.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&partner=yahoofinance

After the weekend debut of "The Hunger Games", Icahn missed out on huge profits - present and future! Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/46848714

Prem brought Bill to our dinner last year, as well as the vice-chairman of KW, Mary Ricks! They met with shareholders and answered questions. Cheers!

Nope, I was right the first time. The bulk of the distributed gains in the previous years were mostly short-term. Still pretty darn good! Cheers!

Actually another correction...I took a look at the notes in the 2011 annual report, and the bulk of the distributed gains were long-term, not short-term. This guy gets better and better. Haven't looked at the other annual report notes yet. Stay tuned! Cheers!

Actually, I take part of that back. I just looked at his annual report again, and his unit value is after the distribution, so he actually did incredibly well. I think the article takes into account the distributions, thus the 40.5% annualized. But a good chunk of that would probably be short-term gains and the annualized return would be significantly lower than the reported 40.5%, but much higher than the 22.7% I calculated. They are very good returns, and as I said...definitely worth watching! Cheers!

It can make a huge difference depending on how much realized gains are passed onto the investors. On a pre-tax basis, the numbers will look very good, but on an after-tax basis the investor may end up paying alot of the gains in tax. It looks like they paid out a shitload of gains in 2010, 2011 and 1st half 2012...over 40% of the gains in 2010, over 35% in 2011 and nearly $4 a unit in just the 1st half of 2012. Compare that to someone who just bought and held FFH during the same period. On an after-tax basis, I don't think his investors did enormously better than in our U.S. fund during the same period since inception. Almost certain they did not do better than Allan Meecham's investors as well. Still, his numbers are good and he deserves to be watched. Cheers!