{"id":833,"date":"2012-02-03T17:05:12","date_gmt":"2012-02-03T15:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/?p=833"},"modified":"2012-02-03T17:05:12","modified_gmt":"2012-02-03T15:05:12","slug":"markel-corporations-2011-earnings-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/?p=833","title":{"rendered":"Markel Corporation&#8217;s 2011 Earnings Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Markel Corporation (NYSE: MKL), one of the 2 companies this blog follows closely reported FY and Q4 2011 Earnings:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The press release can be found on <a href=\"http:\/\/phx.corporate-ir.net\/phoenix.zhtml?c=104364&amp;p=irol-newsArticle&amp;ID=1655529&amp;highlight=\" target=\"_blank\">Markel&#8217;s Investor Information Site.<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A <a href=\"http:\/\/seekingalpha.com\/article\/337691-markel-s-ceo-discusses-q4-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript?source=yahoo\" target=\"_blank\">transcript of their Earnings Conference Call can be found on \u201eSeeking Alpha&#8221;.<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Book value per common share outstanding, the most important metric to value an insurance company increased 8% to $ 352.10 at december 31, 2011 from $ 326.36 at december 31, 2010.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The combined ratio of the insurance business unfortunately rose from 97% on year ago to 102% in 2011 mainly due to natural catastrophies like the Thai floods and hurricane Irene.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Revenues from Markel Ventures, that&#8217;s where they invest money in privatly held companies in the Berkshire Hathaway style, jumped from $ 166 millions to $ 317 millions in 2011 mainly due to one big acquisition.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Markel&#8217;s investments in the fixed income sector are very cautious as they are traditionally \u201ebalance sheet oriented&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">They forego current investment income as they maintain shorter than usual durations in the bond portfolio.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">By doing this they avoid heavy losses on their portfolio once this zero interest environment comes to an end.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">And that will exactly be the moment when Markel&#8217;s stock will return to market&#8217;s favor. So be prepared!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Markel&#8217;s stock at a price of $ 405 trades at just 1.2 book value \/share: &#8230;rather cheep isn&#8217;t it &#8230; why not pick up some shares?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Markel Corporation (NYSE: MKL), one of the 2 companies this blog follows closely reported FY and Q4 2011 Earnings: The press release can be found on Markel&#8217;s Investor Information Site. A transcript of their Earnings Conference Call can be found on \u201eSeeking Alpha&#8221;. Book value per common share outstanding, the most important metric to value [&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\/833"}],"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=833"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":843,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833\/revisions\/843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.asmus-puhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}