"You bought $FFH for the insurance business? That's like buying Playboy for the articles."
When hedge funds shorted $FFH massively...
Prem Watsa: "Consider your trials pure joy."
"Life is a series of adversities and each one is an opportunity to behave well, instead of badly, is a very, very good idea."
His faith gave him a lot of strength
"I would not diminish it."
$CSU Vela LatAm buys Gestión en Tecnología e Información ( GTI ), a Costa Rican company specializing in electronic invoicing software & payment methods.
$FFH Prem Watsa
"We have only 13 people in our head office, we don't have the time to answer these telephone calls. Come to AGM & ask any questions directly."
"If you cannot handle short-term fluctuations, then perhaps we are not the stock for you."
$FFH Prem Watsa talks about his early days in Canada
"I'd come from India where there are people all over the place. I am used to a lot of people and lousy cars. In London (Ontario). I saw no people. You see cars on the street, beautiful cars. But you can't see a single soul."
"The biggest factor in India might be who you knew, but in Canada the biggest factor was just you. Anything was possible." In the meantime, he just had to learn who the Maple Leafs and Canadiens were-and learn to wear long underwear.
$FFH Prem Watsa's signature quotes
"Work as hard as you can, as though everything depended on you. Pray as hard as you can, as though everything depended on God."
"For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
$LIFCO -12%, despite insider buying ahead of results
FCF +21% cagr since 2014 IPO (17% since 2019)
rev +8% (6% M&A, 2% organic, 1% FX)
lost a customer who moved to non-EU suppliers (1 off?)
slower M&A this yr (8 deals so far)
1x leverage (plenty room for M&A)
3%+ FCF (not cheap)
Was Canadian asset manager Connor, Clark & Lunn (CC&L) taking a short position on $VIT-B against a long position on $CSU? The VIT-B short position (shorted Oct 2, bot back on Oct 7) didn't work in CC&L favour. CC&L has taken VIT-B shorts on and off in the past.
$VIT-B Vitec
Q3 sales +15%
organic: +4% (CPI price increases), +6% w/ Q1 M&As
10Y sales cagr +19%
Q4 M&As: ZMartek, AtermIT
COO role eliminated
CEO working directly w/ VPOs
CFO absorbing some support functions
margin tailwind: AI lowers R&D %sales
CC&L exited short pos
$CSU peer
$VIT-B Vitec
Q3 sales +15%
organic: +4% (CPI price increases), +6% w/ Q1 M&As
10Y sales cagr +19%
Q4 M&As: ZMartek, AtermIT
COO role eliminated
CEO working directly w/ VPOs
CFO absorbing some support functions
margin tailwind: AI lowers R&D %sales
CC&L exited short pos
$CSU peer
Imagine government servants do this...
Politicians don't get a paycheck for running a deficit. Tie their salaries to the budget: zero surplus, zero pay.
Copart $CPRT new CEO pay package looks on the surface like textbook alignment, but there are some caveats.
The structure is basically...
- Jay Adair takes a $1 salary, no bonus and no new equity for 10 years.
- He gets instead one 20M-share option in four tranches, with strikes at $26.27, $35.03, $43.78 and $52.54. The option has a 5-year cliff, a clawback if he leaves early, and his gains are locked up until year 10.
So basically...
- Stock flat → he earns $0.
- Stock 2x → he earns ~$263M.
My "concern" is the timing of the option issue, which evidently impacts the existing holders more than it does the recent holders.
Jay Adair came back as CEO on July 31, with the stock near multi-year lows around $28, down from ~$52 in mid-2025. The strikes are anchored to the depressed price in which he (opportunistically?) became CEO.
This ultimately means that...
- Tranche 1 pays on any rebound, so many shareholders might still be underwater while he makes millions (this has no simple solution as setting the bar at ATH would also not be fair)
- The “ambitious” top strike of $52.54 is roughly where the stock already traded in 2025...
- “Doubling the stock” mostly means getting back to where it was without any new value creation
- Over 10 years, a 2x is roughly ~7% a year
Now, a founder-family CEO taking $1 and betting everything on the stock is rare and definitely better than nothing, but the design matters too and reality is more nuanced than it appears.
As designed, Jay Adair could earn hundreds of millions simply by returning Copart to where it was before he came back.
Still subject to shareholder approval!
$LMT
total backlog +63%
book-to-bill 4x
led by PAC-3 contract
multiyear contracts protect threat-led demand
building ahead of customer requirements on autonomous aircraft
inflation-linked price escalators, cash-flow neutrality, & long durations minimize risk of budget cuts
This is exactly why doing nothing in investing is hard. In behavioral finance, this struggle is driven by the action bias—our evolutionary impulse to respond to stress or uncertainty by doing something, even when the optimal move is patience.
Five years after joining #LumineGroup, Lifecycle Software doubled in size.
In this After Acquisition video, CEO Liz Parry reflects on what permanent ownership has meant for the business's customers, financial performance, and leadership team.
Liz, who has been with Lifecycle for more than ten years, is joined by former CEO Kelvin Chaffer, now CEO of Neural Technologies, to discuss the decisions, opportunities, and long-term approach that helped drive Lifecycle's growth.
Lifecycle Software provides online charging, billing, and business support software to mobile network operators, MVNOs, and IoT providers.
Watch the conversation here: luminegroup.com/case-studies…
Constructive debates among wise investors are valuable, but there’s a fine line between productive discussion & endless rabbit holes. Overdiscussing a thesis wastes time. Check our egos, recognize when a debate has run its course, move on! What’s your debate threshold?






















