Did Parsad throw in the towel?

[opihiman2]

I just read a post on here, and I think Sanjeev said they closed up the MPIC fund and returned all capital.  In some cases, making their recent clients whole.  Is that true?  What happened?  Several years ago, I almost invested with MPIC.  Sanj is a good guy, though.  He has a lot of integrity. 

 

Also, I've been reading the board on and off over the years, and man, it's been a pretty eye opening ride.  So many wrong calls on here over the past several years, it makes me wonder who else on here has thrown in the towel and just gone with a cheap index ETF.  I've been investing in the index over the past 5 years, and that was probably a good bet considering the alternatives.  But, recently I went all cash equivalents.  I feel we're in the last inning of this market cycle, and I don't want to try and pick up nickels in front of the steam roller coming in.  Some of the bigger names I can think of that has just under performed terribly in the past several years : Einhorn, Ackman, Paulson, Tilson, Berkowitz, Lampert, Chou.  What other names out there has been underperforming badly?

[shalab]

+1 for Sanjeev's integrity.

 

I was expecting the fund to get hit because of investment(s) into PDH. PDH turned out to be a venture fund investing in Canadian start-ups.

 

If the fund and PDH got shuttered, it turns out to be an affirmation for "When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact."

 

I just read a post on here, and I think Sanjeev said they closed up the MPIC fund and returned all capital.  In some cases, making their recent clients whole.  Is that true?  What happened?  Several years ago, I almost invested with MPIC.  Sanj is a good guy, though.  He has a lot of integrity. 

 

Also, I've been reading the board on and off over the years, and man, it's been a pretty eye opening ride.  So many wrong calls on here over the past several years, it makes me wonder who else on here has thrown in the towel and just gone with a cheap index ETF.  I've been investing in the index over the past 5 years, and that was probably a good bet considering the alternatives.  But, recently I went all cash equivalents.  I feel we're in the last inning of this market cycle, and I don't want to try and pick up nickels in front of the steam roller coming in.  Some of the bigger names I can think of that has just under performed terribly in the past several years : Einhorn, Ackman, Paulson, Tilson, Berkowitz, Lampert, Chou.  What other names out there has been underperforming badly?

[John Hjorth]

opihiman,

 

Nice meeting you in an exchange here on CoBF - for my part, for the first time.

 

I suppose your post has basis in this post by Sanjeev in the PDH topic at August 9^th 2017, right?

 

There is no need to repeat here, what Sanjeev then posted here on CoBF. The Canadian MPIC Fund got closed for the reasons mentioned by Sanjeev then, but there is an US MPIC Fund also, and that is still around.

 

So: The answer to your question, ref. your topic title, is actually: No for the US fund, yes for the Canadian fund.

[Parsad]

opihiman,

 

Nice meeting you in an exchange here on CoBF - for my part, for the first time.

 

I suppose your post has basis in this post by Sanjeev in the PDH topic at August 9^th 2017, right?

 

There is no need to repeat here, what Sanjeev then posted here on CoBF. The Canadian MPIC Fund got closed for the reasons mentioned by Sanjeev then, but there is an US MPIC Fund also, and that is still around.

 

So: The answer to your question, ref. your topic title, is actually: No for the US fund, yes for the Canadian fund.

 

Thanks John!  Yes, that is the correct answer.

 

One of our largest partners who made up over 30% of the Canadian fund pulled out shortly after we invested in PDH...I was also sorry to hear he passed away from a form of cancer a few months later.  But that hurt our liquidity when things started to go south with PDH.  After struggling to reduce the position size and rebalance the fund, we realized we were doing a disservice to our Canadian partners...especially with our size and operating costs.  So we liquidated the Canadian fund, distributed the assets and made four of our partners who had invested in the last few years 100% whole with our own money.  All of the partners walked away with 100% of their original capital or far better...which makes us proud!  We chose to close the fund and so we felt that was the right thing to do.

 

With the U.S. fund, we actually were able to rebalance the fund as we had maintained liquidity and didn't have a large partner redeem like the Canadian fund.  With capital put in by Prem and our existing partners, excellent results on our non-PDH assets for the last 3 years (averaged about 29% annualized), we were able to stay about even as we faced PDH's challenges...essentially we lost about $5M in PDH value and made about $6M in non-PDH value over the last 3 years.  The U.S. fund is not going to be closed, operates at less than a 30 basis point expense ratio, and it's actually in excellent shape with PDH making up about 12% of assets and the rest non-PDH, liquid, mid-large cap equities.  We believe the fund is trading presently at about 55% of intrinsic value and are more than happily accepting new partners!

 

So, yes we threw in the towel with the Canadian fund (which was one-tenth the size of the U.S. fund), but have no plans to throw in the towel with the U.S. fund or PDH.  And this message board isn't going anywhere either!  Cheers!

[opihiman2]

opihiman,

 

Nice meeting you in an exchange here on CoBF - for my part, for the first time.

 

I suppose your post has basis in this post by Sanjeev in the PDH topic at August 9^th 2017, right?

 

There is no need to repeat here, what Sanjeev then posted here on CoBF. The Canadian MPIC Fund got closed for the reasons mentioned by Sanjeev then, but there is an US MPIC Fund also, and that is still around.

 

So: The answer to your question, ref. your topic title, is actually: No for the US fund, yes for the Canadian fund.

 

Ah, thanks for that.  No, I didn't read about the closing of MPIC there.  I think it was in the SHLD thread that Parsad responded to someone saying they closed up shop due to under performance for many years.  Sad to hear.  I really had high hopes, but it's not surprising.  The past 10 years have been devastating to many value investors and even hedge fund legends.  I wonder though about the old folks on here.  It seems that over the years, many of them have kind of fallen off the way side.  Makes me wonder whether they threw in the towel as well.

[opihiman2]

opihiman,

 

Nice meeting you in an exchange here on CoBF - for my part, for the first time.

 

I suppose your post has basis in this post by Sanjeev in the PDH topic at August 9^th 2017, right?

 

There is no need to repeat here, what Sanjeev then posted here on CoBF. The Canadian MPIC Fund got closed for the reasons mentioned by Sanjeev then, but there is an US MPIC Fund also, and that is still around.

 

So: The answer to your question, ref. your topic title, is actually: No for the US fund, yes for the Canadian fund.

 

Thanks John!  Yes, that is the correct answer.

 

One of our largest partners who made up over 30% of the Canadian fund pulled out shortly after we invested in PDH...I was also sorry to hear he passed away from a form of cancer a few months later.  But that hurt our liquidity when things started to go south with PDH.  After struggling to reduce the position size and rebalance the fund, we realized we were doing a disservice to our Canadian partners...especially with our size and operating costs.  So we liquidated the Canadian fund, distributed the assets and made four of our partners who had invested in the last few years 100% whole with our own money.  All of the partners walked away with 100% of their original capital or far better...which makes us proud!  We chose to close the fund and so we felt that was the right thing to do.

 

With the U.S. fund, we actually were able to rebalance the fund as we had maintained liquidity and didn't have a large partner redeem like the Canadian fund.  With capital put in by Prem and our existing partners, excellent results on our non-PDH assets for the last 3 years (averaged about 29% annualized), we were able to stay about even as we faced PDH's challenges...essentially we lost about $5M in PDH value and made about $6M in non-PDH value over the last 3 years.  The U.S. fund is not going to be closed, operates at less than a 30 basis point expense ratio, and it's actually in excellent shape with PDH making up about 12% of assets and the rest non-PDH, liquid, mid-large cap equities.  We believe the fund is trading presently at about 55% of intrinsic value and are more than happily accepting new partners!

 

So, yes we threw in the towel with the Canadian fund (which was one-tenth the size of the U.S. fund), but have no plans to throw in the towel with the U.S. fund or PDH.  And this message board isn't going anywhere either!  Cheers!

 

Much thanks for the response, Sanjeev.  Good to hear you guys are still at it in the U.S.  Maybe I'll end up being a partner in the U.S. in a few years.  In the meantime, I'll peruse the PDH thread to see what has been going on there. 

[Dazel]

 

 

All of the best Sanjeev! Hope you kill it in the Future!

 

Dazel.