Continuing a tradition dating back to 1991, Markel's management team answered questions for two hours on the day after the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting.
Ravi, you wrote, “As interest rates rose over the past four decades,..” Didn’t you mean ‘declined’?
You make an important point: Tom Gayner, and Steve Markel, have been serious students of Buffett for over 3 decades. They have carefully sought to model Markel after Berkshire--to the extent they are allowed. Markel is not authorized by its insurance commissioner to hold concentrated equity positions in its insurance capital, as Berkshire has since the mid-80s; it must hold much higher levels of fixed income securities. This hurt them at zero interest rates.
Tom once told me that he and Steve decided after Markel went public not to set up an investor relations office: it would only produce the kind of short-term investor they didn’t want, and they would be forced to hold regular presentations. In the early days, if you called the IR phone number, you got Tom’s office, if his secretary recognized you, she or he would put you through. They started the Omaha brunches when they realized that Berkshire’s shareholders were the kind of shareholders they wanted to attract. My guess is that a very large percentage of Markel shareholders were represented at the latest brunch. As an aside, Warren once said to me that he measured his performance as CEO by how few shares traded; to which he added, with a chuckle: that is not how his fellow CEOs think, nor on Wall Street. My guess is that Markel experiences low turnover, which of course mirrors Berkshire for the same reason. And that explains why both have resisted splitting their shares.
Ravi, you wrote, “As interest rates rose over the past four decades,..” Didn’t you mean ‘declined’?
You make an important point: Tom Gayner, and Steve Markel, have been serious students of Buffett for over 3 decades. They have carefully sought to model Markel after Berkshire--to the extent they are allowed. Markel is not authorized by its insurance commissioner to hold concentrated equity positions in its insurance capital, as Berkshire has since the mid-80s; it must hold much higher levels of fixed income securities. This hurt them at zero interest rates.
Tom once told me that he and Steve decided after Markel went public not to set up an investor relations office: it would only produce the kind of short-term investor they didn’t want, and they would be forced to hold regular presentations. In the early days, if you called the IR phone number, you got Tom’s office, if his secretary recognized you, she or he would put you through. They started the Omaha brunches when they realized that Berkshire’s shareholders were the kind of shareholders they wanted to attract. My guess is that a very large percentage of Markel shareholders were represented at the latest brunch. As an aside, Warren once said to me that he measured his performance as CEO by how few shares traded; to which he added, with a chuckle: that is not how his fellow CEOs think, nor on Wall Street. My guess is that Markel experiences low turnover, which of course mirrors Berkshire for the same reason. And that explains why both have resisted splitting their shares.
Thanks for writing thoughtful pieces!