Notes on the Notes from the Leucadia Meeting

For those who haven't read the complete notes from Leucadia's shareholder meeting, Inoculated Investor has posted seven pages worth. Here are my quick notes on the notes:

*The succession plan is basically to focus more on buying great (read: durable) companies, to develop capable managers, and to not die.

*Jeffries shouldn't compensate young know-nothings so highly--and if they use stock as compensation they should buy some back too (in order to cut down on diluting present shareholders).

*Americredit was bought too soon and is heading into a tough time as business shrinks, but it is a viable business, will survive, and at some point will prosper.

*Their top investments, including Fortescue, should outperform as the markets come back.

*Cresud has a great set of assets but the fundamentals in Argentina now are terrible and they're not optimistic.

*Commercial real estate? No thanks, say Steinberg and Cummins. And don't ask again, until they are full of durable companies.

*The company is positioned for inflation as they have borrowed in dollars and invested in hard assets.

*Sangart's Hemospan seems to be working fine but more tests are needed. Nobody has died yet, so that's cool. If it works, it will be a lot cooler.

*Third money managers? Never again, say both collectively. It was a huge mistake--especially the Pershing investment where they lost pretty much everything.

*The two couldn't care less about Moody's rating--and don't think you should either. (Hard to argue on this point.) "They have missed almost everything and been late at each turn."

*They don't have a crystal ball and don't know how long the downturn will last.

*Jeffries (JEF) is in retrospect even a better deal now than what they thought when they first made the deal. The deal was done with LUK stock--when it was trading around $54. (There's a message in that for all the JEF-deal-haters.)

*They buy when something is on sale and start to think about selling when the discount disappears.

*Long-term view on natual gas prices is six to seven dollars per Mcf.

*LUK has cash. Is looking to invest. Have been buying back their debt in the meantime.

Cresud--A Leucadia Pick

A recent article at the Fool.com website, focused on Cresud--noting that Ian Cumming and Joseph Steinberg of Leucadia National are invested heavily in it.

Another is Cresud (Nasdaq: CRESY), a Buenos Aires-based asset holding company that owns and operates farms in Latin America and that holds equity stakes in IRSA (NYSE: IRS), a mall and hotel owner in Argentina, and BrasilAgro, an agricultural asset play in Brazil. We've watched over the past few months as the stock has dropped from $18 to $14, then $14 to $10, and finally from $10 on down to $5.

It's since rebounded to around $8, but that price still seems too cheap for a company with Cresud's quality management team and asset base -- regardless of what commodity prices do in 2009. Further, Ian Cumming and Joe Steinberg of Leucadia National (NYSE: LUK) -- two value investors with a stellar track record -- own shares, having bought in for a far higher price.

It's to the point where I (Tim) turned to Nate recently and asked, "Does the market think Argentina is going to nationalize all of its land and shut down its export market?"

Read Nate's reply, and the rest of the article--which goes into some detail on Latin American politics--at the following link.