Author of The Fairfax Way from Viking/Penguin. Click web link to buy. ex Financial Post, MoneySense, Maclean's, Cdn Biz, Globe and Mail. No investment advice.
London
Joined January 2008
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Downright chuffed to see #TheFairfaxWay popping up on more Summer Reading Lists. Thanks Christopher and @penderventures $ffh.to #investing #books #summer
instagram.com/p/DbJr_WngcFr/…
Some great summer reading. If you don't know where to start, try the middle row left to right. #TheFairfaxWay $fff.to
Highly recommended
Five months’ work. A new book on Fairfax. How did a lost decade give way to a compounding machine—and why might the market be missing the opportunity? The business, the decisions and the lessons for investors. Click the link for a free PDF. $FFH.TO $FRFHF
thecobf.com/forum/topic/2193…
David Thomas retweeted
As reported by others, Fairfax Financial $FFH.TO receives approval to buy IDBI Bank Ltd.
Fairfax Financial will own 60% of IDBI Bank and must either merge or exit its 40% stake in private sector CSB Bank within two years of signing the share purchase agreement. insurancejournal.com/news/in…
David Thomas retweeted
CNBC Connects the Dots Between Gold and the Yuan
substackfwd.xyz/?url=https%3…
David Thomas retweeted
$FFH.TO keeps growing their list of companies where they have significant influence or control. It’s unclear what multiple was paid but it looks to be 12-15x earnings. In this case, it will likely be equity accounted for thus boosting operating earnings by $7-9/sh.
"Forcing rates down by buying bonds is like a doctor applying an ice pack to a patient with a fever. The ice pack may lower the patient’s temperature, but the patient isn’t likely to get healthy until the underlying cause of the fever has been dealt with."
My latest memo discusses recent attempts to rein in long-dated government bond yields and why the only sustainable solution is responding to the underlying factors pushing interest rates up, even if politically uncomfortable.
You can read it here: oaktreecapital.com/insights/…
David Thomas retweeted
Our house in Toronto had this fancy glassed wine cellar, but we are not big wine drinkers.
Anyways, it had good climate control so here is my rack cellar.
David Thomas retweeted
The Dutch Investors podcast I was on recently to discuss $FFH.TO has made it to Apple Podcasts which might make it easier to listen to on the go!
Any feedback is appreciated as always.
podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcas…
David Thomas retweeted
Summer is for reading! Below are a few books we’ve really enjoyed this year - spanning business, personal growth, and a dash of pop culture. If any of these books make it with you on your travels or you have any recs to share, we would love to know.
- The Money Trap: @alok_sama gives a front-row account of SoftBank’s dealmaking machine during his years as CFO alongside @nikesharora. Funny, occasionally salacious, and far from the typical sterile business memoir.
- Streetwise: @lloydblankfein is funny, direct, and refreshingly free of corporate-speak. His path from public housing to Harvard Law, commodities sales, and eventually CEO of Goldman Sachs makes for a candid and memorable read.
- The Fairfax Way: Many books will eventually be written about Fairfax Financial and its founder Prem Watsa, but @MrDavidThomas may be remembered as the first, shining light on the company's ethos of integrity and discipline.
- Born to Be Wired: The John Malone empire is vast, spanning cable, media, live sports and more, yet Malone is still not quite a household name. Plenty to learn from the OG “Cable Cowboy.”
- The Snowball: Essential reading for anyone interested in Warren Buffett. The book opens with Buffett’s cautionary Sun Valley speech during the dot-com boom, setting the stage for a remarkable biography of business, character, and compounding.
- Runnin' Down a Dream: Legendary VC @bgurley offers thoughtful advice on finding or creating work aligned with your deepest fascinations. The “flywheel” of running down a dream is hard to beat.
- The Problem of Twelve: Harvard Law faculty member John Coates gives us a sharp critique of just how much power has concentrated in a handful of U.S. financial institutions.
- What Art Does: This short, creative book of questions and puzzles is a gift to the right side of the brain!
- Undermoney: Jay Newman, a former lawyer and portfolio manager, writes a hyper-realistic financial thriller (perhaps an n of 1 genre).
- How to Make a Few More Billion Dollars: Brad Jacobs walks through the invaluable mental models he has used to radically disrupt slow-moving industries, including waste management, heavy equipment rentals, transportation and logistics, and most recently, building products.
- The Tao of Fundraising: John Kim has written what is probably the best book on capital fundraising informed by his career raising many tens of billions of dollars.
🤖 Made with AI
AI may be hallucinating here, but I appreciate the feedback. 🤣 Otherwise, it wld be a great blurb to use in marketing The Fairfax Way. How recent is AI memory anyway?
David Thomas retweeted
Some great summer reading. If you don't know where to start, try the middle row left to right. #TheFairfaxWay $fff.to
Summer is for reading! Below are a few books we’ve really enjoyed this year - spanning business, personal growth, and a dash of pop culture. If any of these books make it with you on your travels or you have any recs to share, we would love to know.
- The Money Trap: @alok_sama gives a front-row account of SoftBank’s dealmaking machine during his years as CFO alongside @nikesharora. Funny, occasionally salacious, and far from the typical sterile business memoir.
- Streetwise: @lloydblankfein is funny, direct, and refreshingly free of corporate-speak. His path from public housing to Harvard Law, commodities sales, and eventually CEO of Goldman Sachs makes for a candid and memorable read.
- The Fairfax Way: Many books will eventually be written about Fairfax Financial and its founder Prem Watsa, but @MrDavidThomas may be remembered as the first, shining light on the company's ethos of integrity and discipline.
- Born to Be Wired: The John Malone empire is vast, spanning cable, media, live sports and more, yet Malone is still not quite a household name. Plenty to learn from the OG “Cable Cowboy.”
- The Snowball: Essential reading for anyone interested in Warren Buffett. The book opens with Buffett’s cautionary Sun Valley speech during the dot-com boom, setting the stage for a remarkable biography of business, character, and compounding.
- Runnin' Down a Dream: Legendary VC @bgurley offers thoughtful advice on finding or creating work aligned with your deepest fascinations. The “flywheel” of running down a dream is hard to beat.
- The Problem of Twelve: Harvard Law faculty member John Coates gives us a sharp critique of just how much power has concentrated in a handful of U.S. financial institutions.
- What Art Does: This short, creative book of questions and puzzles is a gift to the right side of the brain!
- Undermoney: Jay Newman, a former lawyer and portfolio manager, writes a hyper-realistic financial thriller (perhaps an n of 1 genre).
- How to Make a Few More Billion Dollars: Brad Jacobs walks through the invaluable mental models he has used to radically disrupt slow-moving industries, including waste management, heavy equipment rentals, transportation and logistics, and most recently, building products.
- The Tao of Fundraising: John Kim has written what is probably the best book on capital fundraising informed by his career raising many tens of billions of dollars.
Some great summer reading. If you don't know where to start, try the middle row left to right. #TheFairfaxWay $fff.to
Summer is for reading! Below are a few books we’ve really enjoyed this year - spanning business, personal growth, and a dash of pop culture. If any of these books make it with you on your travels or you have any recs to share, we would love to know.
- The Money Trap: @alok_sama gives a front-row account of SoftBank’s dealmaking machine during his years as CFO alongside @nikesharora. Funny, occasionally salacious, and far from the typical sterile business memoir.
- Streetwise: @lloydblankfein is funny, direct, and refreshingly free of corporate-speak. His path from public housing to Harvard Law, commodities sales, and eventually CEO of Goldman Sachs makes for a candid and memorable read.
- The Fairfax Way: Many books will eventually be written about Fairfax Financial and its founder Prem Watsa, but @MrDavidThomas may be remembered as the first, shining light on the company's ethos of integrity and discipline.
- Born to Be Wired: The John Malone empire is vast, spanning cable, media, live sports and more, yet Malone is still not quite a household name. Plenty to learn from the OG “Cable Cowboy.”
- The Snowball: Essential reading for anyone interested in Warren Buffett. The book opens with Buffett’s cautionary Sun Valley speech during the dot-com boom, setting the stage for a remarkable biography of business, character, and compounding.
- Runnin' Down a Dream: Legendary VC @bgurley offers thoughtful advice on finding or creating work aligned with your deepest fascinations. The “flywheel” of running down a dream is hard to beat.
- The Problem of Twelve: Harvard Law faculty member John Coates gives us a sharp critique of just how much power has concentrated in a handful of U.S. financial institutions.
- What Art Does: This short, creative book of questions and puzzles is a gift to the right side of the brain!
- Undermoney: Jay Newman, a former lawyer and portfolio manager, writes a hyper-realistic financial thriller (perhaps an n of 1 genre).
- How to Make a Few More Billion Dollars: Brad Jacobs walks through the invaluable mental models he has used to radically disrupt slow-moving industries, including waste management, heavy equipment rentals, transportation and logistics, and most recently, building products.
- The Tao of Fundraising: John Kim has written what is probably the best book on capital fundraising informed by his career raising many tens of billions of dollars.
Reason # 46 why you shld read The Fairfax Way.
i read it, they could have written a better report by spending $38 and reading The Fairfax Way. Their analysis is all backward looking, based on trading ranges from 20 years ago. It's pretty incredible to not understand how the company has changed. A gift to the buyback!
David Thomas retweeted
Does management/culture matter? That is the topic we will explore in 6 articles in the next week. We start with one of the most important aspects: Is management shareholder-friendly? We have 7 tests. We also review how Fairfax stacks up. $FFH.TO $BRK.A
thecobf.com/forum/topic/2180…
David Thomas retweeted
My recent guest on our Fact Finder podcast was David Thomas, as we discussed his new book The Fairfax Way and the remarkable career of Prem Watsa. This is a very good book for investors.
This is a very good book for investors.
One of the lessons from Prem's career and the book, for me, is that surviving matters.
Investors get excited about new technologies, new opportunities, and new ways to make money. Before long, complacency settles in, fundamentals don't matter like they use to and risk management starts to look like a weakness.
Then the cycle turns. It always does.
Prem built Fairfax over decades, not quarters. He navigated market crashes, recessions, short attacks, and periods when investors questioned his judgment. Along the way, he made mistakes, changed his mind, and adapted when the facts changed.
Prem is a great story about discipline over the long term and the ability to remain patient. The willingness to look wrong for a period of time, sometimes a long time. The humility to admit your mistakes and change your mind. The discipline to protect capital when everyone else is focused on maximizing returns.
The investors who survive for decades are rarely the ones who make the most dramatic trades. More often, they're the ones who avoid the mistakes that take them out of the game entirely.
Has anyone else read the book? What did you come away with?
@MrDavidThomas
$FFH.TO
youtu.be/kbM_267N8ts?si=_Jlc…
David Thomas retweeted
Excited to present at the London Value Investor Conference next week!
Ben Watsa from Marval Capital Ltd. will make this debut appearance at the London Value Investor Conference on 24th June. Ben's title will be "India's Rise - From Emerging to Essential" and we look forward to welcoming him to the event in a few weeks time.
linkedin.com/posts/investorc…
Great chat, Anthony!! Took a few decades to get in there and finally tell their amazing rise-and-stall-and-rise-again story. Great timing, as Fairfax is a different company all over again. And still underknown and under owned. $ffh.to
My recent guest on our Fact Finder podcast was David Thomas, as we discussed his new book The Fairfax Way and the remarkable career of Prem Watsa. This is a very good book for investors.
This is a very good book for investors.
One of the lessons from Prem's career and the book, for me, is that surviving matters.
Investors get excited about new technologies, new opportunities, and new ways to make money. Before long, complacency settles in, fundamentals don't matter like they use to and risk management starts to look like a weakness.
Then the cycle turns. It always does.
Prem built Fairfax over decades, not quarters. He navigated market crashes, recessions, short attacks, and periods when investors questioned his judgment. Along the way, he made mistakes, changed his mind, and adapted when the facts changed.
Prem is a great story about discipline over the long term and the ability to remain patient. The willingness to look wrong for a period of time, sometimes a long time. The humility to admit your mistakes and change your mind. The discipline to protect capital when everyone else is focused on maximizing returns.
The investors who survive for decades are rarely the ones who make the most dramatic trades. More often, they're the ones who avoid the mistakes that take them out of the game entirely.
Has anyone else read the book? What did you come away with?
@MrDavidThomas
$FFH.TO
youtu.be/kbM_267N8ts?si=_Jlc…