Fairfax Announces Purchase of 275,000 Subordinate Voting Shares for Cancellation From Chairman and CEO, Prem Watsa

TORONTO, May 13, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (TSX: FFH and FFH.U) (“Fairfax”) announces that it has repurchased 275,000 subordinate voting shares (the “Purchased Shares”) for cancellation from its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Prem Watsa. The Purchased Shares are being repurchased by Fairfax at price of C$1,512.89 (the “Purchase Price”), or US$1,106.48, per share at an aggregate cost of approximately US$304.3 million. The Purchased Shares were acquired pursuant to an exemption from the issuer bid requirements contained in applicable Canadian securities laws, and as required by the applicable exemption, the Purchase Price does not exceed the simple average closing price of the subordinate voting shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange (the “TSX”) for the 20 trading days immediately preceding the date of acquisition. The Purchase Price represents a discount of approximately 3.7% to the closing price of the subordinate voting shares on the TSX on May 10, 2024.

The transaction was reviewed and unanimously approved by the independent directors of Fairfax. Management of Fairfax believes that the repurchase of the Purchased Shares is accretive to all shareholders of Fairfax as the trading price of the subordinate voting shares on the TSX does not reflect the underlying value of the subordinate voting shares.

As of the date hereof, pursuant to its existing normal course issuer bid and not including the Purchased Shares, Fairfax has repurchased for cancellation 354,761 subordinate voting shares in 2024 at an aggregate cost of US$383.8 million, and Fairfax expects to continue to repurchase shares for cancellation under its normal course issuer bid for as long as it continues to believe that the trading price for its subordinate voting shares does not properly reflect the intrinsic value of those shares.

“As previously announced in 2020, I purchased in the market an additional 482,600 subordinate voting shares of Fairfax at a price of US$308 per share, or approximately US$150 million in total. At the time, I believed, and I said publicly, that the trading price for Fairfax shares was ridiculously cheap and very significantly below intrinsic value, and I was acquiring these shares as an investment. Even though I believe our shares continue to trade well below intrinsic value, I decided to sell a portion of the shares I acquired in 2020, representing only a small portion of my total holdings of Fairfax, for estate planning reasons. As a controlling shareholder, my salary has been fixed at C$600,000, and I have never had a cash bonus nor received any shares as compensation for decades. I continue to control the 1,548,000 outstanding multiple voting shares and 519,828 subordinate voting shares of Fairfax, representing greater than 90% of my net worth, and I am not contemplating further sales. As I have said many times, Fairfax is not for sale, and I am confident that our future is very bright. As always, the best is yet to come,” said Prem Watsa, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Fairfax.