No. of Recommendations: 5
"The purchases are rarely at prices much better than the market average in the period. Feb 13 - Mar 6 inclusive (after the AR number date and up to and including the proxy number date) the average B share price was almost exactly $407."
Which gives approximately $610K/A-share, or 1.57x BV. The absolute lowest repurchase price that Buffett could have paid during that stretch was $590,340 (intraday on Feb 13), or 1.52x BV. If Buffett paid 1.57x BV and that price represented, say, a 7% discount to IV, then IV was 1.69x BV. If Buffett paid 1.57x BV and that price represented, a 10% discount to IV, then IV was 1.74x BV. If Buffett somehow managed to pay 1.52x BV (the lowest price possible) and that price represented only a 5% discount to IV, then the IV was 1.60x BV.
Based on repurchase prices, Buffett's estimate of IV is greater than 1.5x BV, and appears to be closer to 1.7X BV.