Fairfax Financial Holdings

[lazyway]

The Know Your Risk Podcast featured an expert and in-depth discussion on Fairfax. Duration about an hour. Starts at 21:30.

https://youtu.be/iDubMBzGu8U?t=1288

Discussion topics include at least:

• value investor, CEO, Prem Watsa
• why it is difficult for analysts / the market / screens to understand Fairfax
• Fairfax is prepared for a bear market (to buy inexpensive assets)
• Fairfax is inexpensive compared to peers
• Fairfax was added to the TSX 60 index, which could raise the stock’s valuation multiples
• why float is so valuable
• Fairfax benefited from being in short-term rates when interest rates started to rise, while a large portion of peers were in long-term rates
• why Fairfax could exceed analyst estimates in the coming years
• why Fairfax shorted the market in the 2010s
• Fairfax does not seem like an attractive investment if one doesn’t understand what happened in the company during the 2010–2020 period and only looks at the price chart
• why the stock price moved sideways in the 2010s and turned sharply upward in the 2020s
• why the stock typically performs poorly towards the end of the year (hurricane season)
• regarding reserve releases

[PeeJii]

A tip for those with Spotify Premium: The book The Fairfax Way is now available there if you want to dive deep into the company’s story (at least it’s not on Storytel): Spotify

[lazyway]

I found a chart on the thecobf.com forum comparing the performance of Fairfax and Berkshire stock prices from 2001-2025.

Since FFH pays a dividend (and Berkshire does not), I was curious to see what the total return of FFH stock would be if dividends were included.

The return from dividends alone during this period was 52.8%. If the dividends could have been reinvested tax-free, Fairfax’s return would be 1,464% calculated this way. If a typical tax of, for example, 25.5% had to be paid on the dividends, the return would be around 1,310%, but it still beats Berkshire’s returns.

[Lavie]

Thanks! I became interested in the company earlier based on this thread, and I was thinking that there might be some good buying opportunities now, like yesterday when it hit -5%.