Swizzled

So it begins: @NewCHKChairman I need your support. Spread the word. "Hire Shire"

"You need to create a Twitter account like "NewCHKChairman" or "FakeAubrey" and post daily updates. You'd be surprised with how much traction you might get." Thanks for the idea. I'll give it a try.

"Are you saying that you will reject the 40 hours or private jet time extended to each director? I will put your name on my list but who would you chose if it couldn't be you?" There is no way I'm getting on a private jet. I have plenty of free time, so I will take the bus to the Board meetings. If for some reason you can't choose me (big mistake), I'd say a distant but respectable second would be Buffett. Him as Chairman could help bring some respectability to the Board. But I think I should be first choice.

Speaking of nonsense. As a disgruntled shareholder and although totally unqualified I've decided to submit my name for the Chairmanship of Chesapeake Energy. Here is my letter announcing my intentions: http://www.scribd.com/doc/92310743/Hire-Devon-Shire-For-Chesapeake-Energy-Chair Despite lacking in virtually every way, I figure I'm far superior to any existing Board member (excluding maybe Lou Simpson) in that 1. I own shares of CHK that I bought with my own money 2. I have enough common sense to know you don't buy $12 million of maps from your CEO because you can't run an oil and gas company with antique maps I will accept no remuneration if elected. I appreciate any support you could throw my way. 8)

Chesapeake replied to the story. http://valueinvestorcanada.blogspot.ca/2012/04/chesapeake-responds-to-reuters-article.html

In early April through Seeking Alpha I'm taking part in an interview with Tom Ward. Apparently I get to submit five questions. If anyone has specific questions that they would like me to ask, let me know: http://valueinvestorcanada.blogspot.ca/2012/03/contribute-your-questions-for-interview.html

A look at Canadian house prices relative to income and rent: http://valueinvestorcanada.blogspot.com/2011/11/canadian-home-price-likely-considerably.html

I'm the nimrod who first wrote about this way back when. I spoke with the CEO last week and the CFO last night. I've sent those interviews to my newsletter subscribers but I thought I should at least comment on this here. The BMO report does an excellent job laying out all the issues facing the company. And then it basically assumes that the management team is going to just drive directly into a wall in the road instead of acting to avoid that wall. The 2013 put option isn't something that the analyst alerted Petrobakken management to. They had been planning for it for quite some time and have a number of options that they are looking at. The first of which is that they believe production will exit the year at 46k to 49k per day, while the BMO thinks next year will actually average below that. That difference in production assumptions is over $150 million annualized, which basically is the dividend. The part that I find most strange is that the stock sells off on news of a dividend cut. If I were a shareholder of Petrobakken a dividend cut would be welcome as it would greatly reduce the risk of this investment. The bottom line is that these guys need to hit their exit targets to regain some credibility. They have 20 wells coming on each month for the rest of the year, and if you do the math on what these wells produce at reaching their exit rates should not be terribly difficult. Full disclosure, I own this, I thought it was a good buy at $20, it is now $6.

One thing I'm sure we can all agree on is that with the amount of marketing of himself that he does he had better be prepared for criticism.

Moore-Cap, "[Our fund declined 13.7% in August vs. -5.4% for the S&P 500, -4.0% for the Dow and -6.4% for the Nasdaq. Year to date, it’s down 22.1% vs. -1.8% for the S&P 500, +2.1% for the Dow and -2.2% for the Nasdaq." So you are more interested in a one year lag than a decade plus of outperformance through various investment climates ? Personally, I'm more interested in the process. And when I look through his portfolio and his reasoning, I think he is doing the right things. Of course it could well be that Tilson and I both suck, as my performance over the past 6 months has sucked HARD. Strangely the companies underlying my bad performance aren't doing so bad. Mr. Market just seems to have changed his thinking on them.

I couldn't disagree more. http://www.cfanebraska.org/Lists/Events%20Calendar/Attachments/42/T2%20Partners%20Investor%20Presentation-CFA%20Society%20of%20Nebraska-4-28-11.pdf Page 5 has his track record since inception. Looks pretty good to me. He has underperformed for a year. He was positioned perfectly for the financial crisis. Invested very well during the tech bubble. I find him to be thoughtful in his investing process, and willing to talk about mistakes.

I think that is right. I wouldn't block out time in my day to watch them, but for me they beat watching pretty much anything on TV these days.

For some casual viewing while you work: http://valueinvestorcanada.blogspot.com/2011/09/bass-loeb-cooperman-video.html http://valueinvestorcanada.blogspot.com/2011/09/ackmanzell-video-on-real-estate.html http://valueinvestorcanada.blogspot.com/2011/09/bill-ackman-43-minute-video-on-hk-trade.html

"I'm not a fan of Dell at this point. Their business centers on providing machines for enterprise use." I'm not really a fan either, but how bad does a business have to be to justify a 25% free cash flow yield ? Four years and they could retire all outstanding shares.

I've been looking at Dell for months. Started here and was confused why they weren't buying back shares more aggressively http://seekingalpha.com/article/259197-dell-is-dirt-cheap-what-happened-to-the-share-repurchases Not much happened to I circled back again after the started buying back shares again http://seekingalpha.com/article/288019-dell-is-ripe-for-a-leveraged-buyout Now I see Tilson has been buying, suggesting it could be worth 2x plus the current share price. http://seekingalpha.com/article/291381-whitney-tilson-agrees-with-me-dell-is-dirt-cheap Now here is my issue and what I would like input on. This has been cheap for a long, long time. My concern is that a catalyst never arises and eventually something does come along to kill the business. Does anyone have any thoughts on what could get the stock price up in the next two years ? I'm not unwilling to by cheap even with no catalyst on the horizon, but this one strikes me as having potential to stay cheap for an exceedingly long time.