Robert Gill

Things are pretty good. Our economy is growing right now, albeit at a fairly tepid rate. He's fairly encouraged by what's happening in the market. Portfolios are performing well. Banks reported this week with some pretty good numbers, perhaps not across the board, but overall relatively strong.

Old school tech, but tried and true. Berkshire's annual letter to shareholders came out on the weekend. Warren Buffett credited Charlie Munger with being the architect of BRK, while Buffett was more the general contractor. Credits Charlie with changing Warren's mindset from buying fair businesses at wonderful prices, to buying wonderful businesses at fair prices. 

That's what BRK has come to be about. Identifying, buying and owning quality companies over the longer term.

Buffett likes railways, owning BNI, which is the largest US railway. Railways compete in an oligopoly, and that's why Buffett likes them so much. Oligopolies have pricing power.

Looking at the Canadian market, we have CNR and CP. When you have only two companies in one market, that's an oligopoly. Fewer market participants, homogenous products, inelastic demand. More pricing power, higher profit margins. Of course, you still need favourable market conditions for an oligopoly to be successful.

His firm has written an article on oligopolies. It can be found on the goodreid.com website under Blogs, or in today's Investing section of the Financial Post.

Impressive global reach. Improves line speed and yield in manufacturing. Maintenance contracts, too. Less profitable than markets. Leveraged balance sheet. Trades at a premium of 20x vs. market at 15x. No dividend. Better ideas out there.

Pretty happy with it, though Tim's app can be buggy. Well managed. Good collection of brands. Right now, firing on all cylinders. Stream of revenue of 4-6% from franchisees. Invests in growth and innovation. Takeover of largest Burger King franchisee in the world, Carroll's, should increase traffic and customer spend.

Great quality company. Revenue: Canada (53%), US (17%), Asia (17%), Europe (10%). Shares moving higher. China opening post-Covid driving business, higher EPS, and higher share price. No hesitation to buy and hold.

Insurance companies certainly do well with higher rates. You could argue that there might be slower growth in that regard. But they're able to play with the asset mix of their investments to compensate. 

Very good operations. High quality. Well managed. Results can sometimes be volatile due to cyclicality. Impressive free cashflow. Price of energy should remain high due to China reopening plus geopolitical events. Paying down debt. Dividend and buybacks. Fundamentals are strong, but at all-time high. Try SU instead. Impressive yield around 4.5%.

High quality, blue chip. Strong and recognizable brand. Telecoms in Canada are oligopolies, which means pricing power. Canada's largest telecom provider. A conservative investment, given the long-life assets. Interest-rate sensitive, so competes with attractive fixed income. Yield almost 8% and safe, because management "understands who their investor base is".

About 60% of revenue is wireless (largest of its peers), 30% from internet and cable, 10% from media. Took on a material amount of debt, biggest knock against it despite recurring revenue. Technical outages, board succession issues. 

Still likes it. To make money, you have to buy things that other people don't want to buy. Good job focusing on items that can't be distributed through the mail, thereby fending off online retailers. Rate cuts will help the story. Impressive dividend yield of 5%.

Impressive that the stock's done nothing for a year, yet you still get a great dividend return. Assets are very difficult to replicate, long-term competitive advantage. Shares under pressure from macro and company-specific events. Trades 12x earnings, looking at possible interest rate drops later this year. Yield close to 7.5%.

Management has done a great job retaining talent. Close to $900B in assets under management. A behemoth. Trading attractively at 13x earnings.

He prefers TRP to ENB. ENB shares haven't fallen as far, balance sheet has more debt.

Known for growth, now #3 in Canada in terms of market cap. Likes the way it supports small businesses, critical for growth of our economy. Finally profitable during Covid, dropped since then. Extremely high multiple. He needs to see earnings grow towards stock price.