Below is Prem Watsa’s Fairfax 2011 shareholder letter. The letter was released today and we will be posting some of the highlights later.
We marked time in 2011 as our book value per share was essentially flat (including the $10 per common sharedividend paid in 2011), mainly because of a record level of catastrophe claims. Book value ended the year at $365per share, down from $376 per share at the end of 2010. Common shareholders’ equity was $7.4 billion, down from $7.7 billion. We ended the year with approximately $1 billion in cash and marketable securities at the hold-ing company level. Our results have always been lumpy but our long term results, measured by the increase in our book value per share, have been excellent, as shown in the table below:
Letter to Shareholders From Annual Report 2011 FINAL_v001_j939zn
Well have further analysis later today
