Parsad

I'll be at the LA meeting. We had a group of about 20 people gather last year before the meeting. As we get closer, I'll put a post out regarding this year's meeting in LA. Cheers!

Some of the long-term Fairfax shareholders may remember our friend Fabrice Taylor. Taylor worked as a journalist at The Globe & Mail during 2003 when Fairfax was under attack by the shorts. Fabrice fully subscribed to the same theory propagated by John Hempton, Jim Chanos, Peter Eavis and John Gwynn. A couple of years later, Taylor decided to restart "Frank" magazine which would investigate and report on everything Bay Street didn't want aired. His venture was financed by powerful investors that the would not name. The magazine tanked and was out of business within a year! After that Taylor slowly made his way back to writing for the Globe & Mail. I was reading last week's copy of MacLean's magazine, and in there I ran across an article by Peter C. Newman on a fellow named Navjeet "Bob" Dhillon who runs Mainstreet Equity Corp. Dhillon for some time now has been spreading the word that he wants to be the first Sikh billionaire and that he's halfway there. Mainstreet is a heavily leveraged real estate company that buys up old buildings, refurbishes them and increases the rent on the units. Dhillon then refinances the properties and pulls the cash out. Think "Flip This House" but on steroids! Anyway, I had written about Dhillon on here before, but I couldn't believe that Peter C. Newman had given this guy publicity in MacLean's. While writing a letter to MacLean's, I found this article by Taylor written about a month ago, touting Mainstreet Equity's stock. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/mainstreet-equity-an-astute-player-in-wests-apartment-rental-market/article1164277/ How Dhillon or Newman came up with the fact that Dhillon is halfway to being a billionaire, I have no idea. Mainstreet has no tangible equity, but the company is somehow valued at just over $100M. Dhillon owns 36% of the company, so on paper he is worth tens of millions. But he is nowhere near half a billion. In fact, there is no way in hell that I would value Mainstreet at $100M. I wouldn't pay a dime for it. I suspect it is only a matter of time before Dhillon's leverage catches up with him. We'll see what happens in the future, but I'm certainly glad I'm on the other side of the bet than Fabrice Taylor! Cheers!

I'm glad this girl is ok, but I still found it funny. What's disturbing is that the parent blames the city and not that her daughter was too busy texting to pay attention. Cheers! http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/07/13/wabc.sewerfall.texting.wabc

Mohnish had a very tough year and a half from October 2007 to March 2009, but all three of his funds bounced back tremendously in the last three months. Every Pabrai Fund was up over 50% for the last quarter, and they are all up at least 49% for 1st half of 2009. He also had his lunch with Munger on June 9th, and it was longer than his lunch with Buffett...the Munger Lunch lasted 3 hours and 17 minutes! I'm guessing someone kept time! ;D Here's a terrific quote from his letter: I feel incredibly blessed. I happen to be alive when my heroes are alive. Neither lives very far from me. And one of them was willing to accept a bribe to meet up and share a meal. The second one cannot be bribed, but agreed to while away an afternoon with me anyway. Lunch with Warren and Charlie will always rank highly on my list of amazing experiences life has dealt me. The boy born in Bandra in Mumbai never expected life to turn out so well. Cheers!

All you need to know about the war on drugs not working is a quick visit to Vancouver's Main & Hastings area. It's a complete disgrace for this city. Even the police no longer enforce the law when someone is arrested with possession of a small amount of narcotic. Anything that can be deemed for personal use is now no longer even worth an arrest. This area used to be where the hustle and bustle of the city took place 20-30 years ago. The major center of the downtown core here in Vancouver. Today the area code is home to the most improverished, disease-stricken, mentally-ill populace per capita in all of North America...the highest incidence of HIV-infection is in this six-block radius...on par with infection rates in the worst parts of Africa! Several different municipal and provincial governments have done zilch to help the area. Each swinging axes at the other party's legs and blaming them for the sad situation. Truth is the entire city is culpable for what has happened here. Wait till the 2010 Olympics arrive and the media gets to see this area first hand! Every day I take the bus from my home to my office and it passes through this area. I can't believe this even exists here. In my visits to various large cities in North America, I have never seen such decrepit surroundings and people allowed to live in such squalor. An absolute abomination in God's eyes that as a society we cannot help these people. Yes, there are a few private organizations that help in the area, but it seems as though most of society blames these folks for their own condition. Much easier to raise funds for a new Children's Hospital than to increase funding and resources for a crack addict. Funny enough, raising $50M for a completely unnecessary pedestrian and cycling bridge into downtown has plenty of support. We have five existing bridges or viaducts that enter the city, but the cyclists and pedestrians would like their own. Nice! Cheers!

I would agree with that Ben. I think gold relative to supply and demand is elevated when compared to silver, or even oil for that matter. Cheers!

This interview on AOL's Politics Daily is a short but good interview with Patrick Byrne. I found his comments on Mark Cuban quite funny, and his stance with today's conservatives is dead-on. Cheers! http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/07/10/overstock-com-ceo-patrick-byrne-on-the-nations-ills-being-call/

In a response to Google's recent moves, Microsoft will be offering Office online for free in 2010. Who could have imagined that such a moat could be diminshed so quickly. We've witnessed many wide moats disappear over the last decade...how many more? Cheers! http://bigtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/07/13/microsoft-office-to-go-online-for-free/

Hi Kawikaho, The Siegel number was simply one of the first things that popped up on Google when I did a search for Gold versus S&P500. The main point was the illustration between real returns on stocks, bonds, treasuries and gold. Even if you examine data from the last century on, the numbers aren't entirely different. I think people buy gold because they are afraid of an economic shock, currency devaluation or just plain don't know what to do. Sometimes, it is better not to do anything, and the main point of my original post was that I see alot of value investors herding into gold at elevated prices. That is worriesome to me. A company like McDonalds generates over 60% of revenues outside of the United States. So does Coca-cola, Pfizer and a number of other companies. How would they be hurt by a depreciating U.S. dollar? Would they actually suffer? Funny thing is that due to foreign currency translation, these companies actually did better when the U.S. dollar depreciated, rather than when it appreciated. My point was that you could put 10-20% of your portfolio in gold, which cannot be valued, regardless of its utilitarian nature, or buy four or five global companies that were undervalued. Which would be the better investment long-term? A business that generates a growing revenue stream, pays a dividend and generates much of its income outside of the U.S. would easily be the far better idea...Jeremy Siegel be damned...plus he's annoying during interviews! ;D Cheers!

Article from the WSJ. Cheers! http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124744026506929743.html

Geez, and I thought I stayed up late. That's not late. If you see me post at 4:30 in the morning, then you'll know that is late! ;D I'm a nightowl...I do my best reading from about 10pm on. Cheers!

Gold, unlike most currencies, has intrinsic value. It has utility in many industrial applications. I wouldn't right it off. And it has been a store of value, compounding along side inflation for the past 100 years. From the 2005 Berkshire Annual Meeting. On gold, both Buffett and Munger made their dislike for the yellow metal very clear. “We are not enthused about gold,” Buffett said. He prefers an asset that is “useful.” He said gold has very little economic utility and prefers commodities that have an economic effect - like oil. “Gold is a dumb investment,” Munger cut in. Another statistic: In case you're one of those folks, here is some food for thought: Even though gold has spiked sharply in value recently, it hasn't been a long-term winner for most investors. According to University of Pennsylvania finance professor Jeremy Siegel in his seminal book Stocks for the Long Run, here's what a dollar invested in various things would have grown to, from 1802 to 2001. (Amounts have been adjusted for inflation.) Stocks: $599,605 Bonds: $952 Bills: $304 Gold: $0.98 Did you catch that? Over 200 years, you would have lost two cents of your dollar if you had invested in gold. OK, so if your personal investing timeline is less than 200 years, here are some compound average annual returns to consider: Period Gold S&P 500 1982-2007 (25 years) 3% 11% 1987-2007 (20 years) 2% 8% 1992-2007 (15 years) 5% 9% 1997-2007 (10 years) 8% 5% 2002-2007 (5 years) 18% 13% Sources: Yahoo! Finance, MeasuringWorth.com Gold as a hedge against an economic shock may work, but as an investment...you're better off buying T-bills in various currencies. Cheers!

On the day of the meeting the stock was about $11.05, West's average price for SNS is $12 and Lion Fund is a little over $16, if Sardar doesn't think it is undervalued by a large degree at 10% lower than West and a large degree by Lion Fund, how will West and Lion make money? I think intrinsic value is significantly higher. But at the time when WEST and TLF were buying, the rest of the market was relatively expensive to the discount he was getting on SNS. Now, it's the other way around. While SNS remains cheap, many of its competitors, as well as companies in other industries, are trading at a steeper discount to SNS. So, as he said he has three choices...invest in SNS's operating businesses, buy other businesses, and then repurchase shares or pay a dividend. I'm guessing while he could buy SNS stock, there are other acquisitions that may be a bigger bargain. Cheers!

Gurufocus has the Barron's article on Berkshire. Cheers! http://www.gurufocus.com/forum/read.php?2,59929,59933

I don't like the buying gold idea. How the heck do you value it? I think this idea always comes up in a crisis, yet the best protection for investors long-term is not to lose focus of the "long-term." Buying investments at a significant discount to intrinsic value is the best protection for any circumstance...in other words, sticking to what we know. Buying gold is speculative at best, completely misguided at worst. Does an investor put 5, 10, 15, 50, 70% of his net worth in gold? How do you calculate that? I see a small herd of value investors moving that way, and that tells me this probably isn't the right idea. Cheers!

I suspect things revolve around SNS now. As that makes the bulk of the investment in WEST, and an enormous part of the Lion Fund, what he has to say is in the SNS annual report and letter. I would guess that he's already written a letter to Lion Fund partners explaining what his approach will be. I don't want to bother him to ask that, but if there are any Lion Fund partners on the board, did Sardar mail out an annual letter to you guys directly this year, that obviously won't be on the website? Cheers!

I don't think he will be buying shares even at current prices or a slight discount from here. I think this was simply to allow him flexibility to take advantage of any situation in the future. I don't know if he has anything in particular in mind right now, but it allows him to be able to act when he has to. Over the next few quarters, things will be humming at Steak'n Shake and he'll put somebody in place to manage day to day operations as he has done at WEST eventually. At that point, he'll turn his eye on to the next piece of the puzzle. This guy thrives on these things and he isn't about to stop anytime soon. Cheers!

Chanticleer Holdings has partnered with Shaw Food Pty to build 7 Hooter's restaurants in South Africa...four should be ready before the 2010 World Cup next summer. It's been tough at Chanticleer with the credit markets tightening up last year, but things are finally starting to come around. Cheers! http://sev.prnewswire.com/food-beverages/20090710/CL4473010072009-1.html

At one time, Buffett called this the best run bank in the U.S. Today the CFO resigned, and the stock trades at an eighth of where it was 2 years ago. Cheers! http://charlotte.bizjournals.com/charlotte/stories/2009/07/06/daily48.html?ana=yfcpc

$10M relative to $250M+ in restaurant operating equity won't hit the threshold where they would have to convert. Take a look even at WEST where they have not converted. Long-term investments make up virtually 80%+ of equity there, so I'm not sure exactly what the SEC needs for them to convert...I thought it was somewhere around 70%. I don't think it will be an issue for SNS for some time. Cheers!

I agree. I don't think he'll be buying back many shares unless the price falls significantly. As you said, it's pretty much the same gameplan that he put into play at WEST, and now it will be applied to SNS. Cheers!

A sign of things most definitely improving, FTB has amended their credit agreement with SNS to now allow Sardar to allocate up to $10M of surplus cash, including buying back shares. Cheers! http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/93859/000009385909000040/exhibit10_1.htm

Tokyo takes top spot, followed by Osaka and Moscow. Cheers! http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/worlds-most-expensive-cities-to-live.html;_ylc=X3oDMTFiYzg2YzRtBF9TAzI3MTYxNDkEc2VjA2ZwLXRvZGF5BHNsawNleHBlbnNpdmUtd29ybGQ-

Hi Vinod, I just talked to Fairfax and you don't have to even send a letter to request an annual report. You can call reception (416) 367-4941, say that you would like to request a copy of the 2008 annual report because you didn't receive one from your broker, and they will happily mail one out to you after getting your mailing information. Hope that helps! Cheers!

Things are slow everywhere and Omaha Steaks was selling $5 steaks! Cheers! http://www.cnbc.com/id/31850792