Subject: Re: BN versus BAM
But, regardless of the hype and detailed stock analysis, beware of paying too much.


Almost all the recent posts here are about calculating a fair value for BN and BAM, and whether it is significantly higher than current market price.

So what is your assessment of fair value?

Is buying at today's price paying too much?

Brookfield reminds me of Loews Corp (symbol L), not to be confused with the hardware retailer Lowes. The CEO Jonathan Tisch constantly complained about market undervaluing his company. The company has severely lagged S&P 500 over the last 30 years.If you held it the whole time, you wouldn't even have doubled the money. (How come so many terrible companies end up with single alpha symbols: Ford, Loews, Sears?)

There were many discussions of the company and others like Luecadia and Fairfax Financial in the Berkshire, Falling Knives and other value investing boards in TMF. The lesson I learned is that if Mr. Market fails to recognize what you believe to be the fair value of a company after a number of years, Mr. Market is probably right and you are wrong. Better to sell and move on. I learnt my lesson after owning Luecadia for about a decade of zero return.