Parsad

Actually, the train from NYC to Philadelphia is a sweet 2 hour trip on a very nice double-decker train. My brother and I quite enjoyed it! But two hours is a long daily commute. More likely Mdhousa would have to go to Philly early Monday morning, and then come back home late Thursday night, enjoying Friday, Saturday and Sunday at home. But how would the missus feel about being the only caregiver to the kids three nights in the week? Tough choices! But as they say, "Happy wife, makes for happy life!" Cheers!

10th Annual Fairfax Financial Shareholder’s Dinner This will be our 10th year holding our Fairfax Financial Shareholder’s Dinner. It’s set for Wednesday, April 15th, 2015 at the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto. We’ve always enjoyed support from Fairfax, and at our last dinner, Fairfax CEO Prem Watsa brought along about 12 other executives, managers and CEO’s with him. We will also have four excellent speakers again this year! The dinner is held in memory of JoAnn Butler, who was Prem Watsa’s executive assistant for many years. JoAnn passed away on May 12, 2009 from colon cancer, and she was instrumental in the success of our dinners each year. We raised $20,000 for “The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of Canada” in JoAnn’s memory last April…almost $70,200 in the last 5 years! CMC Fairfax Financial Shareholder’s Dinner Upper Canada Room - 18th Floor Wednesday, April 15th, 2015 Fairmont Royal York 100 Front Street West Toronto, Ontario (416) 368-2511 Presentation Only - $100.00 CDN Presentation & Expansive Full-Buffet Dinner - $200.00 CDN Cash Bar Tickets are completely sold out...all 140 tickets gone!! Please email me at cornerofberkshireandfairfax@gmail.com to be put on a waiting list for cancelled tickets. First come, first serve on the list. Last year, we had about 8 cancellations and those tickets went to the waiting list. If anyone is interested in corporate sponsorship of prizes, or any donors for prizes, please contact me at cornerofberkshireandfairfax@gmail.com.

10th Annual Fairfax Financial Shareholder’s Dinner This will be our 10th year holding our Fairfax Financial Shareholder’s Dinner. It’s set for Wednesday, April 15th, 2015 at the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto. We’ve always enjoyed support from Fairfax, and at our last dinner, Fairfax CEO Prem Watsa brought along about 12 other executives, managers and CEO’s with him. We will also have four excellent speakers again this year! The dinner is held in memory of JoAnn Butler, who was Prem Watsa’s executive assistant for many years. JoAnn passed away on May 12, 2009 from colon cancer, and she was instrumental in the success of our dinners each year. We raised $20,000 for “The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of Canada” in JoAnn’s memory last April…almost $70,200 in the last 5 years! CMC Fairfax Financial Shareholder’s Dinner Upper Canada Room - 18th Floor Wednesday, April 15th, 2015 Fairmont Royal York 100 Front Street West Toronto, Ontario (416) 368-2511 Presentation Only - $100.00 CDN Presentation & Expansive Full-Buffet Dinner - $200.00 CDN Cash Bar Tickets are completely sold out...all 140 tickets gone!! Please email me at cornerofberkshireandfairfax@gmail.com to be put on a waiting list for cancelled tickets. First come, first serve on the list. Last year, we had about 8 cancellations and those tickets went to the waiting list. If anyone is interested in corporate sponsorship of prizes, or any donors for prizes, please contact me at cornerofberkshireandfairfax@gmail.com.

Same thing, whether you use sugar, honey, fruit juice, sweet wine, etc. The sugar offsets the bitterness and acidity of other ingredients. Sugar (whatever form) also carmelizes on the outside of the meat (any meat) and that is where much of the flavour resides...especially in good BBQ with a deep rich bark. For those that enjoy coffee, my favorite BBQ rub for meat also includes adding fresh, coffee grounds to the rub. If you like to use a BBQ sauce afterwards, then simmer a pot of coffee made with the same type of coffee grounds, until thickened...mix some of the thickened brew into your BBQ sauce. Makes for an amazing BBQ! Cheers!

Most good dry rubs have some sugar. Are you avoiding sugar altogether or just reducing the amount you use? What about natural sugars in juices...sweet wines? You can use a dry rub without sugar, but it won't offset the bitterness of your other ingredients (herbs and spices). So it won't taste as good...more cajun, less Memphis! Cheers!

There is so much wrong with my mental picture of this: 1) If my math is correct you are over 40. What are you going to do next - a few lines of coke and fall out of a tree. 2) Two legs = two skis (Not One). 3) Independent wealth is apparently bad for ones health. That Rhymes BTW. I last snowboarded when I was around 35. I was sore for two weeks from doing face plants from 8 feet (5 feet plus 3 feet of hill). Still ski though. Beat my nephew on a straight downhill speed race last year. Happy Thanksgiving! To all! LOL! I thought he meant a halfpipe in surfing, because I know he took up surfing several months ago. Now snowboarding! Then again, Eric is wrapping his broken thumb in $100 bills...that must numb the pain a little! :) Cheers!

Hi Petec, I hope surrounding yourself with your friends on here provides some measure of support! There are a lot of us here. All the best, Sanjeev

No problem :) By the way, where did you see the 95% occupancy statistic? Was it in one of their recent monthly letters? I didn't come across it, but I wasn't looking for it. Cheers! 95% occupancy means nothing when the rent doesn't cover expenses. I can get you 95% occupancy in any city if I price the rent significantly less than operating costs. They were buying property all through the commodity bubble...bubble burst! Unless commodity prices rise again in the next few years, I cannot see how their real estate value won't come down. Stock is reflecting that sentiment. Cheers! There's no question there. It'd be better if they had 20% occupancy with $2m in revenue then at least if expenses stayed in a similar range and revenues went up 4-5x they'd make money. But 95% occupancy means there's not much more room for revenue growth. Just curious Parsad, what do you think the long term play for the management is? They clearly can't run the company like this for too long. They'll run out of cash. So as Anders seemed to imply (Anders, please correct me if I'm mistaken), the end goal seems to be appreciation and not cash flow? I think the end goal is appreciation of the real estate portfolio. Insurance did not work out at all, so the plan had to change...become only a real estate company. But they were buying real estate when Mongolia was the only frontier left. The Gold Rush tide in Mongolia may have just ebbed and that appreciation may be a long ways out. Harris seems to have a knack for finding the new frontiers, but he has missed the timing on when to exit before. I have no real idea what will happen here, but we've never owned YAK and have no plans to own it. Jordan at least seems to have hedged his bets a bit, and has been consistently selling over the last couple of years...got rid of about a third of his holdings in the $3+ range on average...good for Calonego and family! Cheers!

No problem :) By the way, where did you see the 95% occupancy statistic? Was it in one of their recent monthly letters? I didn't come across it, but I wasn't looking for it. Cheers! 95% occupancy means nothing when the rent doesn't cover expenses. I can get you 95% occupancy in any city if I price the rent significantly less than operating costs. They were buying property all through the commodity bubble...bubble burst! Unless commodity prices rise again in the next few years, I cannot see how their real estate value won't come down. Stock is reflecting that sentiment. Cheers!

I'm thankful that I stumbled across Berkshire Hathaway's new website in 1998 and read that year's Letter to Shareholders. I was lost in the darkness of my father's death and that letter was the light I needed to find my way! Almost every good thing that has happened to me since...from my family life, friends I've made, Corner Market Capital, Corner of Berkshire & Fairfax, non-profit work, Premier Diagnostics, you name it...was because of that one event. Buffett once said that "Ben Graham was like a God to him." Mine live in Omaha and Toronto! A Happy Thanksgiving to you all! Cheers!

Mohnish presenting to Boston College! Cheers!

The Orange County Business Journal had a little expose on Mohnish's cycling passion...look at those toned legs...he's really getting into good shape! Cheers! OC_Business_Journal_-_November_10_2014.pdf

I could see why some of the boys took him for snobby. He had a quiet way about him, a walk and a talk that just wasn't normal around here. He strolled, like a man in a park without a care or a worry in the world, like he had on an invisible coat that would shield him from this place. Yeah, I think it would be fair to say...I liked Andy from the start. Good luck hitting your 1,000th post! I look forward to it. All the best, Sanjeev

There's about 15 hours left to bid...$19,100 at the moment: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Power-Lunch-with-Mohnish-Pabrai-/121466549354?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c47f8746a Conference call is at $2,060 with 7 days left: http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=121466555194&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2565 Get your bids in! Cheers!

You can assemble the fully-diluted shares outstanding from the last quarterly report, plus all of the press releases since. Essentially, on a fully-diluted basis, you would have had about 92M shares outstanding if all options/debt were converted before the private placement. The private placement was aiming to raise $9M with 50M shares issued. If you check the press release, we were a little short of that total amount, so that will give you the rough, but fairly accurate, number. I am thinking we will see a Quarterly report at some point soon. We have 90 days to file the year-end report from the fiscal year-end...September 30th. We have 60 days to file the 1st quarter report...December 31st. That should give you some idea when the next reports can be expected to be released. The latter would be more indicative of progress than the former, and subsequent reports thereafter will be more useful on a comparative basis. Cheers!

Dear Friends, Hope all is well. This year, we will be holding two E-bay auctions to benefit Dakshana Foundation: 1) The 4th annual power lunch with me for you and up to 7 of your friends, and 2) A 30 minute conference call with me for you and up to 4 of your friends. For the lunch, I'll be delighted to dine with the winning bidder and up to seven friends on a mutually agreed upon date, anywhere in Southern California or on Friday, September 18th, 2015 in Chicago or in April 2015 in New York City or any metro city in India or any other mutually agreeable location. And I'll pick up the tab for the lunch as well. I have also added a bonus for the winner: They get my old wallet which, it is rumored, includes a stock tip. For the conference call, we will find a mutually agreeable time for me to host a 30 minute conference call for you and your friends. A stock tip is rumored to be offered on the call. In the true spirit of a market-driven auction, the starting bid is set at $0.01 with no minimum. You can bid on these auctions at the following links: Power Lunch with Mohnish - Ebay Item #121466549354 Conference Call with Mohnish - Ebay Item #121466555194 The lunch auction will begin on Tuesday, October 21st and end at 4:00 p.m. PST on Friday, October 31st. The conference call auction will begin on Tuesday, October 28th and end at 4:00 p.m. PST on Friday, November 7th. 100% of the proceeds go to benefit Dakshana Scholars. The money could not go to a better cause. Happy bidding! Warmly, Mohnish Pabrai

per cdc: "if a symptomatic patient with Ebola coughs or sneezes on someone, and saliva or mucus come into contact with that person’s eyes, nose or mouth, these fluids may transmit the disease" That is not what it means to be airborne. The Ebola would be living in the fluid droplets and not the air itself. That's a big difference in terms of transmission. Also, your chances of coming into contact with a symptomatic Ebola patient are slim assuming you're not medical worker. If someone with ebola sneezes next to you, you have a real chance of becoming infected. That is not a controversial statement. That warrants significant precaution. And maybe a minor panic isn't such a bad idea, if it means we do a better job containing the virus. I would agree with that sentiment. The fact that most governments have taken a completely lackadaisical view of it till this point, is why it has become the worst case of Ebola infection in history. They should be pouring all the resources they can to put the fire out now! Otherwise, this gets a lot worse over the next three to five years. Cheers!

...interested in selling their asset management business, please contact me at cornermarketcapital@gmail.com. Whether you are interested in leaving the business, or would like to continue in some fashion, feel free to contact me. Closed-ended, open-ended, mutual fund, hedge fund, etc...doesn't matter...would be interested in speaking to you. Thanks very much! Sanjeev

Dairy Queen hacked: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/berkshire-owned-dairy-queen-says-173503393.html Cheers!

Some of you know my brother Aman, who I raised from when he was nine years old after our father died. Well, he and his wife Amrita, had their first child yesterday. I'd like the board to welcome my nephew, Aikum, the youngest value investor in our family! He'll be the guest of honor at our Fairfax Financial dinner next year. The picture below is Aman and Aikum shortly after he was born. Cheers!

The preferred share offering was in relation to the previously announced (June 2nd) asset purchase agreement between the parent company and Burnaby clinic, so as to get the Burnaby clinic into an independent, decentralized position from the parent company. We were willing to subscribe to the entire $500K, and yes, the clinic and company were still very much at risk without that financing, as we could not ramp up the clinic without the money. As we agreed to do the financing (in late July), a couple of employees said they wanted to participate, so we left $75K on the table for them. They kept delaying and then finally backed out in early September. We wanted to finish the raise to complete the asset purchase agreement. There was no malice, intended bonus, or deception. We simply wanted to fulfill the obligation we originally had committed to. Extraordinary how people read into things! You guys do realize we are putting a lot more into the 18 cent private placement than our total commitment to date, right? Cheers!

For our boardmember Buffett_Groupie, who always ends up in every picture! ;D Cheers!

Prem has not run a good insurance operation at all over the comparable timeframe. Yes, Odyssey has brought some insurance wherewithal to FFH and thus it is all conjecture at this point that ORH insurance prowess is readily scalable across FFH. I sold out of FFH waiting to see how they do as an insurance operator. Five years at least for me. I'm not sure that being correct on your decision to sell, necessarily equates to Prem not running a good insurance business during that time period. During the financial crisis, there were only two companies that would have been left standing and would have been the last two to fall...Berkshire...and many might call it dumb luck because of the credit default swaps...and Fairfax. But the rest of their portfolio was also extraordinarily prepared...so how dumb was it really? And then let's examine the second part of that period...what if central banks weren't able to deleverage as easily as they did or if there had been some reluctance in Europe? Then how would the last five years have looked? In terms of an operating business, whether the gains have been through investments or insurance are irrelevant, since in any good insurance company, the results are measured by accumulated losses, investment gains and operating costs. In those terms, Fairfax has averaged 21.3% annualized increase in book per share. But the critics often like to pick and choose, so they regularly say throw out Fairfax's first year. Even then, they've compounded at a terrific 17.6% in book per share. What's past is prologue! The only real comparison between BRK and FFH is what would happen if there are two or 3 years of disasters, like KRW & Earthquakes & floods. The insurance clock will be reset then. The largest Insurers of today, State Farm, Allstate are said to be vulnerable. Will FFH be found with or without clothes when that tide goes out? Berkshire will do fine. Especially in the aftermath. What's the probability of this happening? It is non zero. It has happened in the last 100 years. I don't think Fairfax can handle such circumstances as well as Berkshire, but I think they will be handle it better than most critics think. The insurance operations are changing and you can see it in the underwriting since Andy's been given control. Does that mean we'll continue to see such results...only time will tell. But the fact that they are moving away from acquiring shitty insurers at less than book, and paying up for better quality insurers, is surely a step in the right direction to strengthening their insurance business. Fairfax is not Berkshire and never will be. Just like the Pabrai Funds and Dhandho will never be like the original Buffett Partnership or Berkshire. But these earnest people doing the best they can at replicating the model will prove to be successful. They may not always do it the same way or as well, but a certain level of success over their peers will most likely occur. Markel is another example of copying the model. They don't have to be as great as Berkshire to have success...they just have to be really good! Cheers!

Mohnish presentation for Pan-IIT. Cheers!

We're over 80% subscribed not including the over-subscription...so 67% subscribed of the total in about 48 hours. Thanks for the support! Glad to have you guys as shareholders! Cheers!