Partner24

My investment in Sanjeev's business is the most expensive lesson I had in my life. Lesson learned. You can have the integrity, the intelligence, the knowledge about Buffett, the great determination to build a community around it, etc. Ultimately, all these great qualities are worthless without enough discipline.

Sanjeev, I've got a private message to send you. Can you please give me an email to send it?

Great post!

Thank you for sharing the article.

Regarding FFH, I do not keep myself informed about it anymore, so I will not start a new poll. But feel free to do so. Cheers!

Sad indeed. Lesson learned about how we can sometimes be over-optimistic about value investors. And how FFH team was too scared about macro stuff for too long.

We're 10 years later now and it's time to use your calculator! ;-) Cheers!

OMG. The transcript and comments say it all. At one end of the spectrum of corporate governance, you have BRK, and at the other end of it, you have this.

It looks like the Eye of Sauron ;-)

Didn't like the letter. Too much "bla bla bla". Results have been so so over the last years. It was better before...more results, less words.

Since I don't have a lot of time to spend on analyzing individual businesses, I generaly buy good diversified conglomerates managed by disciplined capital allocators. Stocks like Markel, Clarke, Long4life, etc. If you have some names to share, it would be much appreciated. Ideally businesses that are not too big so they still have large opportunities to expand. Thank you!

Wow! 2.20$. That's huge for them!

The key issue to me is financial independance...free cash flows. In the past, you issued some shares in order to get financing, but now, that financing source is near zero.

Any comment Sanjeev?

Cash flows from operating activities is still a signifiant bleeding. Still need investing and financing to cover that. No more long term debt.

Reports about coyotes in Montreal recently. One of them being sick likely attacked a small dog recently: http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/grand-montreal/201805/02/01-5168730-un-coyote-attaque-un-chien-dans-ahuntsic-cartierville.php (in French). Cheers!

Who knows what will happen...BH may be massive 20 years from now...or it may not exist! Who knows...who cares! Cheers! ;D

Great news. Like the company. I've owned some since a few years. Cash rich. Free cash flows. Growing over time. Conservatively managed. Shareholders friendly. And still cheap. If you know other companies like that, I'm very interested to read you guys. The only another one that I know and share some of these financial caracteristics actually is CGA. But I prefer the PDRX managers. Cheers!

Good to see the candor. We're all humans. It can be tough for anybody sometimes and when someone has no candor, even in tough times, it makes me feel suspicious. Cheers!

Very interesting list. Thanks! I'm actually hesitating between Clarke and Judge Scientific. If you have other ideas, they are very welcome! Cheers!

Do you know some small to mid-sized holding companies that are managed by good value investors? Thanks!

It is focused on its current operating businesses, while seeking out established, positive cash-flowing, small businesses as acquisition targets. All resources will be directed to this endeavor. Good.

You've done a great job Dazel and this board have done a great cheerfulness job over the years, especialy when FFH was in their bad years (Peter Eavis, naked shorts, reserves development, bad combined ratios, stock issues, etc.). Now FFH management has less support, and frankly it's well deserved. They get the reaction from their own behavior. It's more difficult to evaluate the intrinsic value of a business when you see both talk and walk changing like that, when you don't know when the top management will dilute your voting (even if shareholders say no the first time), and when you feel that the top management act more like sellers than business partners on the conference calls.

With Markel, what you see is what you get. Very straightforward people. Their plan is clear and they walk the talk. With FFH, you get a "Oh, Trump is elected now" kind of line for billions of dollars lost. Huge...huge lack of candor. Remember the "we prefer to be wrong wrong...right than to be right right...wrong" kind of line that we heard for years? What a joke. Finally, it was "wrong...wrong...oh ok Trump!" kind of line. Markel was more like "we don't play that game...we don't play that game...we still don't play that game" kind of line.

You may be interested in: George Risk Industries (RSKIA) Advant-E Corporation (ADVC) Parkit (PKT; PKTEF) Command Center (CCNI) Pacific Health Care Organization (PFHO) Innovative Food Holdings (IVFH) Evergreen Gaming (TNA) I'll have a look. Thank you very much!