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Fairholme/Berkowitz


rjstc

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  I have owned Fairholme since he first started the fund and Larry Pitowski and Keith Trauner were with the firm and they had less than $1Billion in their fund.

 

  I am bothered that Berkowitz is going from a tried and true record of good stock picking only, to getting into an operating company (St. Joe) situation. I don't like him getting bogged down that way even if he says he's backing away now.

 

  There are some good thoughts on this board. What are some on what's been going on lately. Thanks

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I have a couple concerns with Berkowitz. Maybe they're trivial, but it's something to think about.

 

He's managing about $20 billion or so....and still refuses to close the fund. He is even advertising the fund on Morningstar. I can't think of many great value managers who advertise.

 

I wonder about his confidence a bit. He spent money writing that letter thanking the government for their support. I still don't understand what that was really about.

 

 

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Berkowitz is one of 2 or 3 mutual fund managers I'd be happy investing with.  Did you get a chance to listen to the conference call he did a few days ago? 

 

http://us.meeting-stream.com/fairholmecapitalmanagementllc_050911/

 

 

thanks for the link. appreciate it.

 

FAIRX is the only fund I own and when I started investing it had less than 100MM. the only reason I invested at that time was it had high % of assets in BRK. I'm happy with the returns, but surprised that he hasn't reduced the fees.

 

I have the highest regards for Bruce Berkowitz for his ethics, patience, humility and lastly the returns.

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I am giving him some rope. He seems to mix characteristics of Buffett, Graham, and Phillip Carret -- old syle investors who understand (or understood) business. If this is a good analogy, he will stop taking money when he can no longer find good investments and when he has enough cash to buy bargains when markets go south. He claims to be comfortable with holding high levels of cash and should take profits when markets are getting hot. Remember that Buffett liked to acquire cash when the holding cost was very low, and that is the case now.

 

A danger signal would be low levels of cash near market peaks. That would be the time to "fire" Berkowitz as a person's portfolio manager. I don't know what his cash level is right now, but I am sure that there are still a lot of bargains in various global securities markets. Domestically I am not so sure, but I have trusted him to answer that question for at least a part of my money.

 

Tex

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I am giving him some rope. He seems to mix characteristics of Buffett, Graham, and Phillip Carret -- old syle investors who understand (or understood) business. If this is a good analogy, he will stop taking money when he can no longer find good investments and when he has enough cash to buy bargains when markets go south. He claims to be comfortable with holding high levels of cash and should take profits when markets are getting hot. Remember that Buffett liked to acquire cash when the holding cost was very low, and that is the case now.

 

A danger signal would be low levels of cash near market peaks. That would be the time to "fire" Berkowitz as a person's portfolio manager. I don't know what his cash level is right now, but I am sure that there are still a lot of bargains in various global securities markets. Domestically I am not so sure, but I have trusted him to answer that question for at least a part of my money.

 

Tex

I agree. Sometimes they go outside their main expertise though. I think there are enough pure plays that he is better at than St. Joe. Ron
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A couple members of his team recently set out on their own...

 

It remains to be seen how well they will do, but I think they bring a fair amount of experience to the table...and definitely smaller AUM.

 

"GoodHaven Capital Management, LLC is a registered investment advisor that began accepting new accounts in March 2011.  Larry Pitkowsky and Keith Trauner, former analysts, portfolio managers, and executives at Fairholme Capital Management, LLC and The Fairholme Fund founded GoodHaven believing we can make money for our clients and ourselves by using a focused portfolio management strategy and a value-investment philosophy."

 

http://goodhavenllc.com/Home_Page.html

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  • 3 weeks later...

He has over $200m of his own money in the fund. I believe he has "incentive".

I agree he sure does and I'm sure as good as he is he'll do well for himself and his investors. I guess my thought is Buffett as an example really try's not to get involved in operating company management and stays in his area of expertise which is capital allocation. For Berkowitz his is stock picking and such. I just wonder if he wishes he didn't have the St. Joe distraction.
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  • 1 month later...

   I have owned Fairholme since he first started the fund and Larry Pitowski and Keith Trauner were with the firm and they had less than $1Billion in their fund.

 

   I am bothered that Berkowitz is going from a tried and true record of good stock picking only, to getting into an operating company (St. Joe) situation. I don't like him getting bogged down that way even if he says he's backing away now.

   

   There are some good thoughts on this board. What are some on what's been going on lately. Thanks

He has over $200m of his own money in the fund. I believe he has "incentive".

I agree he sure does and I'm sure as good as he is he'll do well for himself and his investors. I guess my thought is Buffett as an example really try's not to get involved in operating company management and stays in his area of expertise which is capital allocation. For Berkowitz his is stock picking and such. I just wonder if he wishes he didn't have the St. Joe distraction.

This is part of a thread I started a short while back. Seems to be getting a little more relevant at this point.

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http://torontostar.morningstar.ca/globalhome/industry/news.asp?articleid=393286

 

Bienvenue knows the northwest Florida real estate markets very well, and the fact that he chose to join St. Joe indicates to us that he sees potential in its portfolio. In addition, the hiring is further evidence that chairman Bruce Berkowitz and vice chairman Charles Fernandez are intent on hiring as many Leucadia folks as needed, something we see as another positive for shareholders. We wouldn't be at all surprised to see more ex-Leucadia people occupying influential positions at St. Joe in the future, nor would we be surprised to see St. Joe adopt a similar corporate strategy several years from now. Berkowitz's affinity for Leucadia is obvious to us, so we wouldn't be surprised to see him push St. Joe in a similar direction longer term.
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He has over $200m of his own money in the fund. I believe he has "incentive".

I agree he sure does and I'm sure as good as he is he'll do well for himself and his investors. I guess my thought is Buffett as an example really try's not to get involved in operating company management and stays in his area of expertise which is capital allocation. For Berkowitz his is stock picking and such. I just wonder if he wishes he didn't have the St. Joe distraction.

 

Buffett has so many things going on. Member when he went to run Solly and moved to NYC? The thing is these guys have the bandwidth to be involved as long as it's related to business and investing.  This is not hard labor at a mine. This is sitting around and "thinking".

I guess we would have to add the CF distraction to this.

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I wouldn't worry too much.  Though it is true that your returns will be less going forward due to the funds size, you'll beat the market over periods of 5 years.  You have to ask yourself, what is it you want in life?  Will you get that with Fairholme?  If the answer is yes then you have one less thing to worry about.  If not, then it's time to identify a new money manager. 

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Fairholme posted its 13F for the third quarter. Berkowitz has increased his position in both AIG and BAC by buying warrants on top of the common stock. Total value of the portfolio was down to 8.2 billion from 12.9 billion.

 

A lot of positions -- Berkshire, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Citi, Regions,  etc -- have been trimmed, presumably to meet redemptions. Berkowitz has completely sold out of Morgan Stanley. The Goldman position is down to almost nothing. There is a small new position in Wells Fargo.

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  • 5 months later...

q1 13f indicates nothing but selling by berkowitz...

 

note that berkowitz sold over 6% brk, looks like his overall brk holdings are down to approx 2%, he doesn't seem to believe that brk is significantly undervalued at the moment.....

 

is he building cash or could he be buying in europe?

 

regards

rijk

 

http://www.dataroma.com/m/m_activity.php?m=fairx&typ=a

 

It's hard to argue that Berkshire isn't undervalued.  The question is always, are there better opportunities available?  If you know what to look for, the answer is yes, but if you are a pension fund you should probably only hold Berkshire. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Fairholme has filed their 13F for the last quarter: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1056831/000105683112000002/submission.txt

 

Positions in AIG, BAC, CIT, LUK, MBIA, SHLD and JOE stock have changed little.

 

Berkshire has been cut significantly.

 

BAC warrants have gone up from 8.5 million to 9.8 million.

 

AIG stock and warrants were almost 40% of the portfolio as of 3/31. BAC and SHLD add up to another 28%.

 

Berkowitz is definitely sticking to his guns!

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