Partner24

That's a great board Sanjeev. Congragulations! I hope we'll be able to enjoy it over the next years and even decades.

Well, at first glance, that's disapointing, but we've been throught that ride before and we have to take the long term view. Over the long term, their results have been very good so far and I don't see why they suddenly would have lost their talents. No problem with the munis. These are fundamentaly sound and when they bought them, they got a great deal and they'll know when to dispose of them if they have to. But like I said approximately a month ago, I think they should take time to explain their hedges better and to let us know what would happen if we would like a 1 to 50 years to 1 to 100 years event that would be the contrary of what they want to protect at first glance (i.e. huge bubble in the stock markets in wich they took a "downside protection"). Regarding that "overconservativeness" on the reserves, I've heard that since 2003. In the end that "overconservativeness" have to show up on the numbers. But Fairfax is not W.R. Berkley on the underwriting side of the business and I think that people have to realize that. But W.R. Berkley is not Fairfax neither! Both have their own talents. Cheers! Cheers!

Partner, I have ~ 7% of my portfolio in FFH & 3% in BRK-B...would you take 7% + 3% of added cash and add to these holdings? Before the additional cash I am ~ 25% cash. Well, I cannot recommand you to do anything since I don't know your investment profile, tolerance to volatility, when you plan to retire, etc. That being said, to me, some very good P&C insurers are still cheap and deserve to have a significant part of my portolio in them (but that's me and that's based on my own profile).

Some P&C insurers are still cheap despite the overall market increase. I think that they still provide a very decent margin of safety. Some high quality big caps too. Just my opinion. Cheers!

Henry Singleton? I second that. As for one of the best long term stock investor of our times, I would say Shelby C. Davis. As for one of the best conglomerate builder of our times, I would say Brian Joffe.

Definitely Biglari Holdings. Let me bet it's CEO will get a chapter in the next edition Warren Buffett CEO book. It's the perfect fit. I've also got a scoop for you guys..... Forget Watsa, Pabrai, Lu, etc. Biglari IS the next Warren Buffett! :o I'm just not sure if BRK is big enough to buy Biglari Holdings. What do you think guys?

Enough is enough! I understand that hockey is not ballet, but very reprehensive shots should be penalized far more than that. Brain concussion or other serious injuries aren't needed to envoy a great hockey game!

I've never studied any company in that field before (except Leucadia, but that's just a part of their overall conglomerate), so my questions might be dumb, but they look like opportunistic and disciplined value investors in their field: - Does a part (or a significant part) of their success might be related to the tailwind that this sector had over the last years (i.e. price increases in the ressources sector)? - If we have a bubble in the ressources sector like some value investors think, wouldn't that hurt Altius significantly? I know they have treasuries and cash, but as far as I know more or less 30% of their market cap.

Current Asset Base (as of December 31, 2010) • $145 Million in treasury •529,251 shares of Royal Gold Inc. valued at ~$28 Million (received as part of IRC purchase transacti) •Voisey's Bay LP interest (10%) •*32,285,006 shares of Alderon Resources Corp. (ADV-TSX-V) •$25 million investment with Cranberry Capital (Paul van Eeden) - early stage mineral exploration companies •Increasing collection of "created" royalties - Paladin Energy - CMB - 2% gross sales uranium royalty and 2% NSR on base metals and precious metals, Alderon Resource Corp. - 3% Gross Sales Royalty on Kami iron ore project, Northern Abitibi's Viking Gold project 2-4% sliding scale net smelter return royalty, Rare Element Resources' Nuiklavik REE project - 2% gross over-riding sales royalty. •Diverse portfolio of exploration projects including 9 active Joint Ventures •Rambler Metals and Mining plc (12 million shares)

Can someone come up with a some of the parts calculation? It's a nearly 400$ millions market cap company. - (145 millions and treasury December 31th) - (125 millions Alderon stake actual value) + related future income tax - (28$ millions in Royal Gold) Still more than 100 millions in assets to find in order to say that everything else is "free".

Thank you for posting it again. Terrific post. Cheers!

I've known some people from his firm for several years too. They have their niche. They invest mostly in great companies managed by great people for a fair to good price and sometimes keep the shares for a very long period of time. I know that everybody is unique when there no "next something" or "next someone", but even if they are not the same, their investment style reminds me the one they have at Sequoia Fund. I would feel good to put some part of my family's money in their fund. There is not a lot of investment firms in wich I have that level of trust and confidence! Cheers!

The fryer has broken down twice. The doors fell off the freezer. The flooring already needs to be replaced, and the cheap dining-room furniture won’t be far behind, he said. And it’s not a contractor issue: Steak n Shake cut too many corners on materials. Demons on cost? Yeah, what about having a CEO compensation package that would only allow him to buy these kinds of materials for himself? I hope that G5 for Las Vegas trip allegation is not true, because if I was a franchisee, get cheap material like that and I would get to know that, that would be icing on cake... Good Lord I hope he will not buy a plane for himself like he buys freezers for his franchisee!

What is he doing? Seems to be wasting time + resources on doing something that adds no value whatsoever. My 2 cents: since actual shareholders have approved his very generous compensation package, he's trying to reduce the liquidity of these shares in order to not ultimately taste his own medicine (new shareholder(s) who make some noise, get the actual board members out, fire the CEO).

Fortunately it wasn't Sardar, otherwise we would have heard "Mr. Buffett, I believe that Berkshire has too much excess capital, and I would like to forward a shareholder proposal to return some of that capital back to shareholders." Obviously, Buffett would say no, at which point a proxy fight would ensue...Buffett would be removed, Sardar would become CEO, Cooley would replace Charlie Munger, and Berkshire Hathaway would become Biglari Holdings...because most of those owners would want to sell their business to Biglari Holdings and not some insurance company. Ahah good one :D No wait, he would first say that he would not do it for the compensation to rally some shareholders to his cause and then, he would propose a very generous compensation scheme for himself. First aggressively, then he would retire his proposal and let some time pass to let the angry shareholders sell their shares, then be back and change the compensation scheme slightly just for the show. Then he would say that he's a demon on costs...except for his own compensation. But, that's just a fictive scenario, because Berkshire has a true ownership culture, and it's shareholders would show him the exit door. Cheers!

LOL ;D At some point, Berkshire will start to pay a dividend. I'll no speculate as to when, but Berkshire not only can't buy lemonade stands, but at this time neither the lemon producer in the purpose of moving the needle very significantly.

Valuecarl, I mean, Lou Simpson has a terrific track record. He's one who could do most of the money by compensating himself with a performance fee. Obviously, he's doing that because he love the game rather than he loves the fees. Cheers!

It's just speculation, but if I'm Lou Simpson and my batting average has served the shareholders handsomely and I keep hearing by one top executive about the great talents of an external investor to the company that has done one big homerun, maybe it would help me to feel the need to retire. Then, maybe that I would find my new retirement environment to be boring, so I would do the best of both worlds. Do what I love in the best environment I can think of (small enough sum to have a vast field in wich to choose stocks and invest for people that I like and like me too). But that's just speculation from my part. The full true story is situated between the two ears of Lou Simpson. Cheers!

I wonder if we'll be able to see it's holdings on a quarterly basis? (reported to the SEC).

Do You Really Need This? What, a cafeine call option? ;D

If you agree, let me close this thread. I'v called Fairfax twice for this issue. First time at the mid december. The second one at the first week most of white and blue (maybe more blue?) collars worked since January. Both times the assistand told me that "they are in a meeting" and "they will call you back". So let me get this straight. I'm overall a very satisfied shareholder of Fairfax. I admire Prem and I guess that the team at Fairfax are hard workers that do their job for the benefit of long term shareholders. I understand that they want to provide with the same information for all shareholders and I agree with that. No VIP for anyone it's a very ethical behavior for any company, but especially a public company. So my hat down for that. That being said, when FOUNDAMENTAL (not the daily stock price...) are not clear enough, they should find a way to get their ear open without needing to have someone ranting. Best of all, when they have something complex to understand and, especially if it is significant, they should provide any information that is useful for every shareholders to use to get a better understanding of what they get for the money they give. Some of you might say that a lot of public companies don't do that so why Fairfax should do it? Because it's a great company! An average company is covered and owned by people who's always search fo the next flower. Fairfax atract people who search for a field to stay for years to come! Cheers!

What would you think about creating a company that would last at least 341 years? How many "day traders" would have taken a look at your daily quote? :D Cheers!

Zellers is part of the Hudson Bay Company. Do you know when the Hudson Bay Company was founded? 1985? 1969? 1915? 1895? 1815? 1795? (Partner, what are you smoking?) 1715 (...) Drum roll please.... ...in 1670!!! :o http://www2.hbc.com/en/index.shtml Not in terms of profitability, but in terms of longevity it would post most of Berkshire subsidiaries into shame! Cheers!

For this to happen, either corporate earnings have to double/triple or PERs have to go up to tech bubble levels (50-60x?) while at the same time FFH's equities did not move in sympathy with the broader market. I think it is way more likely we have major terrorist event plus a major natural disaster in one year than for this scenario to play out. oec, that's a good point and this catastrophic scenario is probably not very likely (a 1 to 50 or 1 to 100 years event?), but frankly I'm better at looking at overall ark constructions than to predict rain and sunshine. But, like I said before, it would be best if we would have more informations on all these hedge instruments to get a deeper understanding of them. It would help us to better assess the risk/rewards of them and, even more when you have an important part of your net worth in that business, this is essential in my opinion. Cheers!

No. This is a specific hedge (called CPI-linked derivative contracts) in the whole Fairfax hedges instruments. You can take a look at page 12 of their last quarterly report to take a look at the basic numbers behind the hedges fhat Fairfax has: http://www.fairfax.ca/Assets/Downloads/2010Q3.pdf Cheers!