| | | Curious as to your thoughts on other insurance companies, and why you chose FRFHF versus the other options? You're like me in that you portfolio is pretty heavily weighted with insurance - I love how the good underwriters are able to efficiently compound their books while using free float to generate investment returns. You can't argue with their results over the long run.
Anyways, Prem Watsa is often lauded as the "Canadian Buffett," (Personally, I think Buffett's name is thrown out way too often and loosely in comparisons to others. Everyone should be judged on their own merit, not on a comparison to Buffett.) but they have very different styles. The only similarity is that they run insurance companies that use free float to invest in common equities while most others stick to bonds. There are numerous others who do the same as well. But the big difference is that Prem often makes large macro bets in the market, whereas Buffett is only interested in compounding book in the long run. How do you feel about Prem's use of capital? I almost feel as if Buffett is an investor while Prem is more of just a gambler, and that doesn't sit well with me.
I'm a big fan of Gayner and Markel (which I see you also have), but there are others that I also like. Namely Weston Hicks at Alleghany (although he is much, much more conservative than others and will likely underperform his more leveraged peers in the long run. at the same time, there is less risk of permanent loss of capital), Bill and Rob Berkley at WR Berkley, Ray Barrette at White Mountain (who unfortunately just retired, although the man he picked to replace him seems competent and experienced), Iordanou at Arch Capital, Chubb before it was unfortunately swallowed by ACE (who is efficient in it's own right, but not in a way that I like), etc. etc.... I just feel like there are many others who are more efficient at allocating capital than Prem, although you can't really argue with his results in the long run. I believe he's had compound growth of around 20% annually since 1985. I just don't think I'd feel right leaving my money in the hands of someone who seems like a gambler. Obviously since Fairfax is one of your holdings, that's not the way you feel. I'd just like to hear the other side of this, since Fairfax has taken a big dip in the past 6 months - which I'm assuming is due to his big bet on deflation that didn't pan out. I never saw the outcome on what kind of hit they took to their books due to that. But now may be the best time to be buying into Fairfax over the past few years so I figured I'd look into it. |
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