Parsad

With your track record do you really have problems with partners trying to pull their capital at inopportune times? Have you ever considered going the CEF route? You can raise capital much easier, and you don't have to deal with those pesky partners anymore either, they become nameless shareholders. The ongoing fees are much smaller than an open ended mutual fund, and you essentially have the permanent capital you desire. Yes, but you no longer provide liquidity for your share/unit holders. If you acquire public or private businesses with overpriced shares, those owners may want to liquidate part of their sales proceeds to pay taxes, distribute capital amongst their own shareholders/heirs, or invest somewhere completely different. With a CEF, doing that may prove difficult in a relatively short period of time if it is a significant percentage of outstanding shares, and thus turn away a considerable subsection of the companies you may be targeting. Cheers!

You guys are missing the biggest, and by far the most important point...access to permanent capital and financial markets. While the downside is more regulatory hurdles, filing/legal/listing costs, and greater scrutiny of daily share valuation. The upside is complete freedom from partner/shareholder redemptions, as well as the ability to quickly raise more capital through public markets. Although, if your private corporation generates more than enough cash flow for future needs, and you will not need access to capital markets, than simply going the private company route is better than public. Cheers!

Don't forget the $80M or so, whatever the number was, that they brought up from Steak'n Shake the subsidiary by leveraging it with debt. Also, $14M in tax reassessments that saved the company, which was the idea of the company's accountant and a former friend of Biglari's. As well as, the sale and leaseback of many of the underperforming stores which generated tens of millions. Nonetheless, he has done very well since taking over and even after all of those things, it is still quite impressive. Cheers!

Hey, they might not have lasted as long with such a crappy business! ;D Cheers!

For our funds, they have been 100% individuals, families, family trusts, family corporations or partnerships, etc. No institutions, endowments, fund of funds, etc. We couldn't be happier, as it is usually the institutions and fund of funds that pull their money first out of fear! We've actually refused money from fund of funds. Cheers!

I can't even imagine doing something like that. If you are a rockstar like Buffett, Prem, Mohnish, Ackman, Einhorn, Icahn, etc...sure! Otherwise, I can only see it as something incredibly pretentious. If anything it would be a "subsidized coffee with Sanj"! ;D Cheers!

WHO IS SANJEEV? The Dude, AKA the big Lebowski

I'm changing my name to "The Dude" and started bowling as well! Cheers!

Yes Paul, you are correct! Out of all of the stocks available, I will probably refrain from commenting on ten of them at any given time. That is not the end of the world. Cheers!

First of all, many money managers tell people why they are buying such and such security. Irwin Michael has a full website dedicated to share his ideas and thought process. To my knowledge, there is nothing illegal, unethical or that would prompt regulatory enforcement for doing such. I'm not Irwin Michael. I would like to keep a lower profile and just go about managing money. I also said that I would not talk about our specific positions. I will continue to discuss stocks, etc, we don't own, as well as continue all of my general commentary. Second, the money managers who attract money tend to be the ones who share their ideas. If you are quietly doing your business, you turn into an unknown and it becomes very difficult to attract new investors and that is even if you have phenomenal rates of return. We were very open in the past about our investments. We did not raise a lot of capital, so that contradicts your thesis. Mohnish once told me that the reason I haven't raised much capital is because I give all of my ideas away on the board. That didn't affect how I behaved for years after. And those comments are not the reason why my behavior will change now. It's a matter of priority, time management and to a certain degree...a result of our goals going forward. Third, I cannot imagine that sharing your ideas on this board has led to investors not investing with you. The way you have shared ideas so far, you can tell a bit what you own, but it remains impossible to copy your approach. If someone has any intention to have his or her money managed by someone, they will contact you if they like your approach and not simply trying to copy. It's worked both ways. We've attracted some people by our ideas, but I think for the most part we've given ideas away for free and probably dissuaded people from investing. No one likes to buy the cow, when the milk is free. But it is not really about that. As I mentioned, I would like to focus more on managing money and less distractions. Simply moderating the board consumes a significant amount of my time. Then general comments not on specific stocks, planning events like the FFH dinner, or helping people with their memberships, passwords, usernames, etc, consumes more than double. Combine that with my efforts at the CCFC, and now a probable event in Canada for Dakshana Canada, and I have less and less time. We will shortly have 3 funds going, which means three annual audits, three funds with regulatory filings, three funds with administrative duties and all of the client contact that goes with that. I'm stretched thin as it is! At some point in the near future, we will probably go the public company route as well, and that will limit what I can discuss even more, as well as consume more valuable time. Fourth, while I can understand your unwillingness to discuss lightly traded securities, I cannot see any reason to avoid discussing liquid securities such as a Bank of America even during accumulation. Again, let me reiterate, this is not so much about sharing ideas, as the amount of time I have in the day to get things done. And there will be less and less of that time available. My job for this board is to moderate it, generate events, and maintain an environment that is conducive to ALL OF YOU enjoying your time here, networking, making friends, sharing ideas and living life. That is more important than me sharing ideas or voicing my opinion on matters! Fifth and finally, I enjoyed sharing my ideas on your website and looking at yours. I thought this was a solid place to find new ideas, to validate or dismiss them. It was a nice give and take process. Now, if the leader does not participate anymore in sharing his ideas, I see the website having greatly diminished in value. You guys always get so dramatic about everything. For the most part, nothing will change. I will generate ideas and discuss stocks, but they probably won't be stuff we actively hold or are buying or selling. There are some 7,000 stocks globally...if I don't talk about 10 of them, will that really kill you or destroy the board? :o Cheers!

Outside of Fairfax and Berkshire, we won't be talking about any of our holdings going forward...you'll have to watch filings or be a partner. ;D I will say one thing...one quarter of results does not sway our views either way. Cheers and please keep your heads on!

I hope I make it to 90 and look as good as Charlie with as sharp a wit! My great-grandmother is 96, but her body is rapidly failing. Her mind is all there, sharp as 30 years ago, but the body is deteriorating. At least another 10 years of good health Charlie! Cheers!

Especially since insider trading rules are so "vague" that one of the top hedge fund manager's in the world can't understand them and gets his lawsuit dismissed. I think if you gave a rudimentary explanation of what "insider trading" means, most 5 year-olds would be able to use enough judgment to say when a circumstance is insider trading and when it is not. What ever happened to the common sense notion of just not doing something if you think it is too close to the line? It's ridiculous that Cohen is not going to jail. On another note, how the hell did Bethany McLean get on that show...captive hedge fund journalist who herself shed a trail of emails regarding Fairfax. I remember this Deep Capture article covering this: http://www.deepcapture.com/bethany-mclean/ And not only journalists like McLean! A whole host of investment managers are as culpable who cow-towed to such personalities as Cohen and Chanos, and the minions that sprouted from their deep pockets like Adam Sender of Exis, or rotten apples that did their dirty work like Contogouris, Gwynn, Eavis, Greenberg, Hempton, Antar, Conen and Weiss. Many were guilty, few were innocent, even though they've pretty much gotten away! This is all so passé now, but I remember the confrontations many of us had with these characters, including a couple of assholes from the Motley Fool. How so many thought Prem was filing a lawsuit to hide problems at Fairfax, or how crazy Patrick Byrne was. Yeah, he's a bit crazy, but he was 100% dead-on the corruption permeating Wall Street. He had the courage to write about this stuff when no one in the media wanted to touch it, because they knew they would be cut-off from any future stories or information from those hedge funds. Even my hero Warren Buffett decided to step away from the controversies. I remember asking Patrick Byrne back in 2007-2008 about why Buffett, a family friend of his, wasn't speaking up about all of this stuff, especially after giving a very affirmative answer to a question by Whitney Tilson at Berkshire's AGM on manipulative naked shorting. He just said, "Well, I too was a bit disappointed that Warren did not speak up a bit." Six years later and the world is now familiar with the government's case, many of the players, and the firms involved. Too bad they only scratched the surface! Cheers!

Also discusses the Fairfax lawsuit. Cheers!

Not sure, but usually Mohnish will tweak his presentations and talk about other things as well...plus there is probably a Q&A. As well, with the Ivey Conference you get a number of other great speakers, including the one I was really looking forward to if I was attending...Wilbur Ross. I hope Wilbur can make our dinner too...would truly love to hear him speak! Cheers!

From Manual of Ideas! Cheers! mohnish-pabrai-carroll-school-2013.pdf

Happy New Year to you all! Cheers!

I would go, but I'm tied up that day getting things ready for the dinner. I could only go for maybe the first couple of hours, so it would be a waste of money for me. A number of forum members are attending, as well as many people who attend the Fairfax AGM but are not forum members. Cheers!

George has a terrific list of speakers for next year: http://www.bengrahaminvesting.ca/Outreach/2014_Conference.htm - Mohnish Pabrai - Irwin Michael - Richard Lawrence - James Rosenwald - Bruce Flatt And not on their website yet...Wilbur Ross! It will once again be at the Fairmont Royal York, April 8th. Registration for the event should open soon...most likely today! There is an early bird rate: Non-alumni $650. After Feb 28 $800. Alumni $600. After Feb 28 $700. Table of 8 - $4500. Cheers!

Announcement related to Ben Graham Centre's 2014 VIC: Seminar on Value Investing and the Search for Value July 14 - 18, 2014 Toronto, ON This seminar, taught by Dr. George Athanassakos (Professor of Finance and the Ben Graham Chair in Value Investing at the Ivey Business School, Western University), is geared towards financial professionals and individual investors seeking to enhance their knowledge of value creation, valuation and value investing theory and practice. Ms. Gaelen Morphet, Senior Vice-President & Chief Investment Officer, Empire Life Investments will be a guest speaker on July 18. http://valueinvestingeducation.com/seminars.htm

Vegetarians turn away! One big Christmas turkey I cooked today. Cheers!

I've got a 28 lb turkey in the oven...dinner for about 30 family and friends tonight. It's so damn big, it doesn't fit the large roaster properly, which is meant for turkeys up to about 22 lbs. I'll put a picture up later once it is done. I've put herbed butter all over it, with oranges, lemons, onion and rosemary stuffed inside, and I baste it every 45 minutes or so with white wine, vegetable stock and the drippings from turkey and the herbed butter. Mmmmm! Cheers!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! Thanks for all of your contributions, but most importantly for all of your friendship! Cheers!

To the boardmember who is 100+, please tell me your secret to longevity...and hopefully it includes eating bacon! Cheers and congratulations!

I have mixed feelings about VIC. In late 06, we went to a meeting where an outstanding value investor with a no longer small fund was recognized for having the best documented record of all 2000 +funds that had been tracked by a service since Y2K. I punched Tim and said that our record had been better than his. Then I got a big head and said that I wanted to submit an idea to VIC and get some satisfaction or recognition. My idea was for a company we had bought in the summer of 06 that had by then become our largest position: Lancashire Holdings: it was selling for less that what I projected their forward NAV would be the next time they reported. Plus, It was practically a net net because they had high quality, short term assets and had had almost no losses and hardly any reserves in consequence. My submission was brief because VIC said the maximum word count could be no more than 500 words. I didn't hear from them, but then a few months later, I discovered that they had accepted an analysis of LRE that had been submitted a few weeks after mine. In fairness, that other submission was outstanding, much better than mine. Even so, I was a little ticked because the other poster had been allowed about 2500 words for his submission. Later in 07, I spotted changing conditions that I thought would lead to a turnaround in Star Gas, a previous posting on VIC that had tanked and been reorganized after the original post. After loading up, I sent my thesis to them, but again, it was ignored, even as that stock doubled in the next few months. Both of my submissions referenced BV\SH and increasing earnings available for stockholders rather than EV/EBIT which was not the best metric, given their capital structures and where the value lay in those two companies. Go figure. ??? That's because those qualifying the ideas are an aggregate of the general community. Their results as a whole will never be better than the average. It's why VIC theoretically is a good idea, but not in practice or functionality. In general, they are an analyst community and we know how analysts do on average! ;D The results here would be probably the same if taken in aggregate. But because we don't have a general committee that judges the ideas, there are pockets of individuals who clearly can outperform the markets by significant amounts over time. This board allows you to try and coat-tail those people...VIC and most investor forums do not. Cheers!