Liberty

A company with around 160m revenue and 60m in cash coming in isn't cash rich? What's cash rich to you? They haven't stopped making acquisitions and they've said they have a strong pipeline there, but their favored way to finance those is now cash & debt rather than stock. Buying back stock when it is very undervalued is a good capital allocation decision, not manipulation. And while I disagree with the dividend, it is small and can have important side benefits as mentioned above. If you read what has been written in this thread earlier, you'll see why EBIX makes acquisitions and why it generates lots of growth (whether it's labelled organic or not doesn't matter to me). As for the taxes, they had NOLs of 60m and a large part of their IP is created and hosted in India and Singapore (they haven't transfered any IP outside of the US). Of course they pay low taxes, they're partly in low tax jurisdiction (mostly to take advantage of less-expensive but high-quality indian engineering talent, but the taxes are a good side benefit), there's nothing strange about it. Margins aren't compressing, they're expanding with each new customer (the beauty of software), but they are reinvesting anything above 40% into new salespeople for about the next year.

Pretty much everything, but I won't write a 10-page essay here.

Raina's words aren't always well chosen - kind of the 'english as a second language' curse on top of not being a polished communicator in the first place - but I believe that his business and capital allocation instincts and models are very solid, and that's what matters to me. While I would have preferred more buybacks without a dividend, at the rate at which cash flow is growing, this small dividend will look even smaller soon and the vast majority of capital is still going to buybacks and acquisitions. Any loss from tax inefficiencies can probably be compensated by a higher share price to make acquisitions, which would free cash for buybacks. Maybe Raina and I don't mind a low stock price, but employees and acquirees that are incentivized with stock probably mind more, and losing good talent (or potential acquirees) because of this would be bad, and that has to be factored in.

Please elaborate on what you find bothersome. From what I understand from an interview where he said that (or maybe a call), he means that he still sees a lot of opportunities for the company to grow (revenue, number of clients, enter new countries), as opposed to a mature company that is expected to stay more stable in size.

I guess I'm the only one who isn't in a hurry to kill the shorts :) I would have loved to see them buy back boatloads of stock at sub-$20 prices for one more year at least. But you never know, whoever is attacking EBIX is resourceful and we might see another attack soon that could keep prices low for a while longer despite the dividend...

I disagree with this move, but oh well.. It's not bad per se, but IMO it's sub-optimal allocation of capital. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ebix-board-of-directors-authorizes-regular-quarterly-dividend-of-004-per-share-2011-09-07

I have a question for you Moore (and anyone else who cares to answer): What are the best ways to learn more about the mining/metals sector? Any good books about the industry? Especially good annual letters? Podcasts? I've learned a fair share reading 10ks, but I'm trying to expand a bit.

http://www.gurufocus.com/news/144526/ebix-improvement-in-operating-efficiency-with-high-return

Just rumors at this point, but hopefully turns out to be true: http://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=22919

Another question for you, Moore. What do you think of Cliffs (TSE:CLF)? I'm generally more interested in base metals than precious ones, and it has been on my watchlist (though I still prefer Altius to it specifically, and small caps in general because they are usually less efficiently priced, but if ALS becomes much more expensive and CLF becomes less expensive, I wouldn't mind picking some up).

I wasn't familiar with him or his company. I had a quick look at TSE:DC.A (that's the right one, correct?) and am reading the 10K now. At first glance it seems pretty cheap, but I haven't looked at everything they own yet so maybe there's a reason. Thanks for pointing them out, I appreciate it! Where would you rank it compared to the list above (with altius #1, etc)?

Thanks! Does NRH trades on an exchange? I can't seem to find it, and their generic name makes it hard to Google (if you have a link to their website, that'd be super). I appreciate your ranking and will definitely do more research on those.

Even if he answers 'yes' to all these, it's still not the system we have, and under the system we have, he obviously prefers to own productive businesses rather than currency, whether that currency is cash or gold. You might disagree with him, but his position is pretty clear and logically explained, IMO.

Hi Moore, Curious to know which of those is/are your favorites and why? I'm a big fan of Altius, and I'm trying to widen my circle of competence in that sector.

I agree with this. As Claude Shannon would say, you need to stick to where you have an edge. Maybe some people here are macro geniuses, but even these people seem to only get it right an awfully small percentage of the time (it's not a binary outcome thing where you start with 50% odds, in macro forecasting there are thousands of variables interacting with each other in unpredictable ways, so you start with very low odds of being right), so I'm not sure that provides much of a margin of safety...

That's great! If FFH employees or management are reading this, thanks!

Thanks for posting interview. What's your opinion on SII? I looked at it a couple years ago but missed the boat. With SII you would have managers like Rick Rule, and Eric Sprott (who owns most of the shares I believe) on the team. I've been reading up on them a bit. Not yet sure what I think, but I'm also curious to know other people's opinions (Dazel, are you reading this?). Edit: Actually, I was looking at SCP. Anyone can shed some light on the corporate structure of Sprott? SII and SCP are totally separate, right?

Ok, am I the only one who finds this very condescending? Please stop attacking strawmen and pretending that goldbugs are the only people who can think for themselves or whatever (anyhow, these days, the lemmings are in gold, not in value investing). It is entirely possible to agree with Buffett and Munger without just following what they're saying blindly and unthinkingly.

Small delay at Thurso: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fortress-paper-provides-update-on-dissolving-pulp-conversion-project-2011-09-02 I don't mind too much. I'd rather they take their time and get it right, and if it's partly because of the "rescheduling of the delivery and installation of specialized equipment", it might be out of their control anyway.

And if that doesn't work, make sure you right-click-and-hold-the-button :)

I started reading that one but stopped after a few chapters. Didn't grab me and didn't seem particularly well written. Maybe it got better, and maybe I'll try it again some day.

Thank you!

And what did you think of the second part?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/09/netflix-to-lose-starz-its-most-valuable-source-of-new-movies.html

And it'll stay that way as long as Microsoft can manage to keep it that way.