Fairfax 2020

[Xerxes]

Just to give this context.
Common share dividends is about $275 million.
8% of that is $22 million in dividend cash payment.

So the $150 million that he put in is 6-7 times the size of his annual dividends.
Assuming my math is correct this must be a good.

[StubbleJumper]

Just to give this context.
Common share dividends is about $275 million.
8% of that is $22 million in dividend cash payment.

So the $150 million that he put in is 6-7 times the size of his annual dividends.
Assuming my math is correct this must be a good.

So, you are suggesting that if Prem might have had ~US$150m laying around if he had racked up ~10-12 years of divvies, paid the dividend taxes and then didn't go crazy on spending in his personal life?  That's definitely plausible.


SJ

[Xerxes]

Not at all.
I was just giving scale to his $150 million. Which at first I struggled to categorize as significantly big or just ok.
 
That was my way of saying if he is getting this much every January from his captive investment so a number that is multi fold greater must be viewed as a significant purchase.

[Parsad]

Not at all.
I was just giving scale to his $150 million. Which at first I struggled to categorize as significantly big or just ok.
 
That was my way of saying if he is getting this much every January from his captive investment so a number that is multi fold greater must be viewed as a significant purchase.

I would assume that Prem has about $200-250M outside of his Fairfax stock at a minimum before the stock purchase.  He's stated numerous times that 90% of his net worth is in Fairfax...which would be about $1.5B or so before the stock market correction.  So in relation to his net worth, it is probably the most substantial purchase of Fairfax stock that I have seen him make...and I'm going back 20 years!  It was at 0.6 times book for God's sake.  We had not seen that since 2003-2007.  Cheers!

[John Hjorth]

These purchases have taken place in Mr. Watsa's personal account, right? Does anyone here on CoBF know, if the controlling shareholding in FFH is still in that legal entity called Sixty Two Company [or something like that] ?


Edit: Fixed typo.

[petec]

These purchases have taken place in in Mr. Watsa's personal account, right? Does anyone here on CoBF know, if the controlling shareholding in FFH is still in that legal entity called Sixty Two Company [or something like that] ?

I believe it is.

[John Hjorth]

Thank you, Pete.

[Cigarbutt]

From this year's proxy:
"The Sixty Two Investment Company Limited (‘‘Sixty Two’’) owns 50,620 subordinate voting shares and 1,548,000 multiple voting shares, representing 41.9% of the total votes attached to all classes of our shares (100% of the total votes attached to the multiple voting shares and 0.2% of the total votes attached to the subordinate voting shares). V. Prem Watsa, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, controls Sixty Two and himself beneficially owns an additional 258,790 subordinate voting shares and exercises control or direction over an additional 2,100 subordinate voting shares. These shares, together with the shares owned directly by Sixty Two, represent 42.5% of the total votes attached to all classes of our shares (100% of the total votes attached to the multiple voting shares and 1.2% of the total votes attached to the subordinate voting shares)."

For context:
https://s1.q4cdn.com/579586326/files/doc_downloads/shareholder_letters/1992-Letter.pdf

[villainx]

This is with Fairfax not doing share buybacks, right?

[petec]

This is with Fairfax not doing share buybacks, right?

They are buying back. Or at least they were in April, which is the last data I saw.