Partner24

We seem to redo a version of this thread every few weeks Great, people keep fishing. One day, they'll catch a tasty fish. ;D

I don't know any public conglomerate that use the Leucadia "business model". That being said, if you know one, I'm very interested to hear about it. A year or two ago, an investor asked C&S at the LUK AGM if there was any next Leucadia out there. One of them answered something like "We don't know any, but if you see one, shoot it". They don't want more competition in their field. Cheers!

I'm late in that thread, but it's a terrific idea Sanjeev. With that thread, we go back IMO to one of the basics of this message board that make it truly unique. By the way, I've notified that the board have been more "quiet", respectful, civilized and productive over the last week or so. It's great! Regarding the general karma of a poster, I also agree with Sanjeev, but some of us might remember the "Recommend" post feature of the old board and, to me, it was something valuable. Cheers!

It's been 2 years now that Warren Buffett published his point of view in the New York Times. Just two years, but the climate was different then. Investment community was in panic. Dow Jones was in the mid 8000's range and the S&P 500 in the 800's-900's range. Cheers! http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html

..Be careful, she will want you to buy her a new fur coat Lol! Yes, she will tell you that she found one that's selling at a 50% discount and that it would not be a bad trade after all! ;)

100% in few A's. You might do very well for decades with B's, but in the end if you have a zero (you tought it would be 0,2, but you get 0...that's the 30% uncertainty) because of an economical storm (see 2008), you still end up with zero. 7*7*7*0= 0. Cheers!

Good question. We would need full details to better understand that (reinsurance, risks and % covered, etc.). But a priori, the odds of accidents that would imply full 9 billions coverage have to be extremely low to justify such a low premium. Cheers!

Beds are the exception ;)

I prefer by far to buy used furnitures. They usually sell for a fraction of the original cost and have years of use to help juge their quality. I sometimes hear complains from relatives who bought expansive new furnitures that got easily scratched in less than a year or so.

anders, You're idea sound interesting. I'll take a look at the story and the numbers. I've been a fan of video games, especially in the 80's. This is an industry that change fast. Think about the Commodore, Intellivision, Atari, Coleco, Nintendo, Sega, Playstation, etc. etc. etc. There is some games that last in the minds of people, like Legend of Zelda, Mario Bros, World of Warcraft, etc. but there is a lot of fads too. How can the Activision moat can be maintained over time? What will protect the company from it's competitors over a long period of time? In other words, what will happen after your honeymoon? Will it be a long standing marriage?

At Leucadia, they specialize in distressed investments, bankruptcies, etc. You really have to have the aptitude or gift for this. Yes, I hear you Sanjeev, but that second part of the letter was about the "Fortress Leucadia" and cigar butt issues. I don't know the exact words at the top of my desk, but what I understood from what I red is that Leucadia will try to find more durable and well managed Conwed Plastics kind of businesses and less financial genious cigar butts kind of situations going forward. So the puck might be in a different place than it's been most of time in the past. Cheers!

there is no real succession plan. Sanjeev, I have received a personal letter from one of the two Leucadia top managers and he wrote me that the succession issue has been a topic of every LUK board meeting over the past decade. It doesn't necessarely means that they have found a successor (?), but that means that unless that this topic is an inside joke from the board, that issue is taken very seriously by Leucadia. Cheers!

I've been following LUK for several years and still don't see what people like about this company. See page 1: http://www.leucadia.com/c-p_letters/luk_c-p2009.pdf

Well, it's good news for it's shareholders. Thanks for sharing it Sanjeev. Cheers!

Gee...nobody in the 8 years old category? Guys, what about our future? We can't teach new dogs old tricks or what? ;)

Crip, excellent post. I have nothing to add. Cheers!

We still live in a capitalist system. Shareholders are the ultimate owners of a company. They decide who will be on the board of directors. If the board does not his job properly and don't slap the fingers of a greedy CEO who speak left, but walk right, they can show the exit doors to the board members and chose a more appropriate CEO. That's their right, but no one will force them to use it. I'm surprised that no one like Gabelli has made some noise by proxy over the Sardar case so far. It would be a very easy target...far more easier than what Sardar done with the past BOD.

This is a nod to obvious shareholder disappointment, but it does not change what has been shown about Mr. Biglari's temperament, judgment and tone-deafness. How likely is he to execute the long range plan of keeping excellent managers with a personality that is all about him? He has had his "naked moment" and there's really no coming back from that, at least for me. Same is true for Cooley and the Board. You wrote it better than I would have done it myself. Simple, clear and quick. Thank you RRJ for saving me some time ;D

So, I figure the data set is meaningless. Uccmal, I agree with that statement, unless the company is somewhat difficult to understand and the indisers are selling "everything they can". Cheers!

Thank you Prem for walk the talk. I'll never forgive what you said few years ago at the AGM about what was deeply anchored in your mind and the mind of the board. May the "anchor" last forever. I'm looking forward to be there with my son when he'll be old enough to understand (he's 5). Maybe he'll ask you a question. Thank you for the results so far. I hope that you'll live for a very long time. May I split your age in two? I'll take a 1 for 2 FFH stock reverse split in exchange if you want too. Deal? ;) God bless you, take care and long live Fairfax! Cheers!

Good post netnet. I appreciate the effort that you put to analyse your mistakes. It's how an investor get better with time. When an investor don't recognize and analyse it's mistakes, tell me how he will not repeat them in the future? So congragulations. Here are my 2 cents on your points: 1) There will never be "the next Warren Buffett", just like there will never be the next Wal-Mart, Michael Jackson, Bono, Pavarotti, Madonna, McDonalds, etc. When we try thing about a smaller size copy of something, we undoubtely make a misconception mistake; 2) Group think can be a good thing and a bad thing because the "crowd" can be right or wrong. In the end, you have to be confident enough yourself about something, because in the end you end up with the results. A crowd opinion is not an alternative to good judgement. 3) Usually no need to. Do a BRK shareholder really need to meet Warren Buffett to trust him? Not necessarely. It's a case by case situation. 4) Indeed! Back to point 3, that's usually a good reason to meet the CEO directly or have someone whom you trust it's judgement to meet him. And ask some difficult questions if needed doesn't cost a dime and can avoid someone to save thousands of dollars in financial mistakes. So it can be a very "lucrative" per hour task! A track record can help a lot, but it's not the only thing. A company success is usually a bumpy ride i.e. there is some time when things get more difficult. It's usually when you'll see if the CEO wants to hide it's mistakes or be truly candid about them. Compensation can speak a lot too. When I see huge stock options outstanding, in the end the CEO will be more affected by the score board than what's happening in the playing field. It's job is to focus on the ball, not meet the score board employee too much and try to convince him that he's a good baseball player. Or his overall compensation is quite high, I guess that the guy is not frugal enough. There is some other hint like that too. Cheers!

I didn't like the Snowball book (red 2 or 3 chapters and then closed the book), but that article has some valid points of view. As long as the comments are fair, even if they are negative, I welcome them. It's good to see the two sides of a coin. Cheers!

Very interesting thread. I'll study some of these names that I never heard about. Cheers!

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100920-708528.html Let me be clear on one point: I can’t predict the short-term movements of the stock market. I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month — or a year — from now. What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up. So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over. Warren Buffett, october 17th 2008 The good news is that spring is not over yet (IMO), but that being said, the S&P 500 is approximately 20% higher now than when WEB wrote that. Cheers!

Looking for short term "alpha"? Thousands of companies out there. It's fair to say that when you enter in the Fairfax "restaurant", there is no short term stock performance oriented stuff on the menu. If we're long term investors, it's what happen on the basebell field that truly matter most, not the maniac depressive guy who enter the numbers on the scoreboard. Cheers!