{"id":628,"date":"2011-02-04T14:48:26","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T12:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/?p=628"},"modified":"2011-02-04T14:48:26","modified_gmt":"2011-02-04T12:48:26","slug":"markel-had-an-impressive-year-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/?p=628","title":{"rendered":"Markel had an impressive year 2010!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">After listening to the <a title=\"MKL FY 2010 Conference Call\" href=\"http:\/\/www.investorcalendar.com\/IC\/CEPage.asp?ID=163117\" target=\"_blank\">FY 2010 conference call of Markel Corporation<\/a> (NYSE:MKL) one simply remains impressed by their discipline and their committment to build strong value to shareholders as few others!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Markel today rests on <em><strong>3 pillars to realize shareholder value:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><strong>1. The first is obviously the insurance section.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The insurance market overall has been competitive and soft in 2010 and they anticipate that it will remain so in 2011!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Gross written premiums have been just under $2 billion.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The combined ratio stood at 97% which is very good after realized losses from the Chilean Earthquake and from Deep Water Horizon.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Markel never sacrifies profitablity for growth! Don&#8217;t forget that!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><strong>2. Investment section<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This section just had a fantastic year!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">They gained 8.1% in local currencies or 7.9% after conversion into US$, even as they sacrify return by buying bonds of shorter maturities in order to protect them against rising interest rates.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But the best is the Equity component of their investment portfolio:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Up 20% compared to a 15.1% rise of the S&amp;P 500 index!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Over the last 5 years they had a return of 6.2% and over the last 10 years a return of 7.6% clearly outperforming the S&amp;P500 index!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><strong>3. Their third pillar is Markel Ventures<\/strong><\/em>,<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">which invests in private high quality companies.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This is still a rather small part of Markel Corporation with its $185 mil revenue in 2010, but watch out!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">They profit from a high reputation and confidence just in the way Berkshire Hathaway always did and they have the same investment criteria!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">For more details about the FY 2010 results please listen to the <a title=\"MKL FY 2010 Conference Call\" href=\"http:\/\/www.investorcalendar.com\/IC\/CEPage.asp?ID=163117\" target=\"_blank\">conference call<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Markel&#8217;s book value\/share is at an all time high of $326.36. The stock trades at a price\/book value of 1.3<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8230;..still doesn&#8217;t seem very expensive for a company many value investors consider the \u201enext Berkshire Hathaway&#8221;!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Cheers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After listening to the FY 2010 conference call of Markel Corporation (NYSE:MKL) one simply remains impressed by their discipline and their committment to build strong value to shareholders as few others! Markel today rests on 3 pillars to realize shareholder value: 1. The first is obviously the insurance section. The insurance market overall has been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":639,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions\/639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}