Burford Capital $bur out with Q1 numbers, two takeaways for me 1. management didn't overpromise in the May update: realizations are picking up thanks to court activity 2. hidden underneath the YPF media-related ballyhoo is a well-functioning, capital-light and high ROIC business

Tired of the same old idle talk at the start of conference calls? So is Mark Coombs, CEO of Ashmore $ashm.l it seems:

Fairfax $ffh.to acquires $2bn loan portfolio from PacW in cooperation with $kw. 1.7y duration w/ floating rate. Reading through this, how could anyone still bring up the good old claim 'Prem is a terrible capital allocator'?

Columbian oil exec "We are not corrupt" (Parex Resources $pxt.to)

Imperial Brands $imb.l CFO when asked about how long-term their share repurchase plans are

Incoming new CEO at real estate asset manager Patrizia $pat1.de to invest personal funds, apparently incentive plan change underway. Out of favor, "uninvestable" sector, falling knife type chart. No position, but tempted.

"Capital allocation review" possibly means share repurchases bar a major deterioration in business through the summer.

Vistry $vty.l trading update, lifting '23 guidance. UK home building doing all right, who would've thunk? £450m EBT which might end up much less cyclical going forward than some analysts think due to half of business generated in partnerships segment.

@_inpractise What he's really saying is that in the past insurances got away by simply not paying claims and telling claimants to sue if they don't like it. Which most didn't. Not excessive litigation is a tax on the economy, but market participants who think they can bend rules are.

Interest & dividend income now at $1.5bn annual run-rate for the next three years. Underwriting & equity/associate income icing on the cake. Sale of Amynta and increase of stake in Gulf insurance to 90% to crystallize another $500m in book value.

Fairfax $ffh $ffh.to Q1 numbers look great, as expected and foreshadowed at AGM. GWP up 7.2% (showing some moderation), CR of 94%. NI of $1.2bn incl. IFRS17, Book value per share +6%. 150k shares bought back (slower 2% annualized run-rate) .

@TidefallCapital "Ignore the combined ratio for now, we're collecting valuable data".

UK Buffettology Fund does not agree with outperformance of "so-called value stocks" and "trash" such as healthcare, energy, defense and tobacco.

I think it's a worthwhile exercise to compare valuation metrics across businesses. And to follow market rationalizations as to WHY something is valued at 10x EV/EBIT (pedestrian junk) vs. 30x (high quality mission-critical). Narratives often don't hold up for very long.

A great read by Lewis Robinson about market perceptions and valuation in the UK small cap space. Highly recommend subscribing to @ExpectingValue

@IntrinsicInv @WTCM3 @Bonhoeffer_KDS Why 'certainly'? Exponential improvement from here is absolutely not a certainty. We had more than one AI winter before.

@ed_fin @shocklord State-run 'companies' in Iran or North Korea are also not going bankrupt for 50 years counting.

@BrownMarubozu @CJ0pp3l @PhillipsRelic @TidefallCapital Sounded like Prem misunderstood or didn't listen well, your question was very good!

This disclosure is new (to me), he said they have made these investments over the last two to three months.

$ffh.to Fairfax AGM: Watsa outlines how they re-allocated cash into 3y treasury bonds so interest and dividend income will be $1.5b+ for 2023/2024 and 2025. If prices rise sharply (recession), they then might change into higher risk instruments.

@TidefallCapital @Bonhoeffer_KDS Grab the mic

I think it was a major victory for activists that $bnr.de Brenntag did not go ahead with the misguided Univar merger. I was positively surprised and bought a position. Wouldn't expect rapid decision-making on specials/essentials. Attractive business & valuation even without.

@breadcrumbsre Jack Welch would disagree.

@BrownMarubozu Isn't the Eurostoxx50 20% below the 2000 high still?

@TidefallCapital A good contrarian buy-signal will be when we see consensus responses along the lines of "Gayner is completely washed up" or "their capital allocation makes the stock uninvestable".