Good morning, and welcome to Fairfax's 2021 year-end result conference call. Your lines have been placed in a listen-only mode. After the presentations, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At that time, to ask a question, please press star one on your phone's keypad. For time, we ask that you submit your questions. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Your host for today's call is Prem Watsa, with opening remarks from Mr. Derek Bulas. Mr. Bulas, please begin.
Good morning, and welcome to our call to discuss Fairfax's 2021 year-end results. This call may include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ, perhaps materially, from those contained in such forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of uncertainties and risk factors, the most foreseeable of which are set out under Risk Factors in our basic shelf prospectus, which has been filed with Canadian securities regulators and is available on SEDAR, and which now includes the risk of adverse consequences to Fairfax's business, investments, and personnel resulting from or related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fairfax disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements except as required by applicable securities law. I'll now turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Prem Watsa.
Thank you, Derek. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Fairfax's 2021 year-end conference call. I'd like to give you some of the highlights and then pass the call to Peter Clarke, our President and Chief Operating Officer, to comment on our insurance and reinsurance operations, and Jen Allen, our Chief Financial Officer, to provide some additional financial details. I wanna begin, first of all, by congratulating Peter Clarke, who was made President and Chief Operating Officer last evening. As I said in our press release, Peter has done an outstanding job for Fairfax in numerous roles over the past two decades and fully deserves his appointment as our President. In many ways, Peter has been the President of Fairfax for some time, I said. It just took us a while to realize it. There is no one who represents Fairfax culture any better.
Smart, hardworking, with no ego. Jen and I look forward to continuing to work very closely with Peter. We had an outstanding year with record earnings of $3.4 billion, surpassing our previous high of $2 billion in 2019. Book value per share grew by 34%, adjusted for our $10 per share dividend. The 34% growth in book value was a combination of record underwriting profit over $800 million and outstanding investment results. Our combined ratio for the year was 95%, despite another year of high catastrophe losses. Gross written premiums were up 25% in the year, over 30% in the fourth quarter, with steady rate increases across all our major lines of business, with the exception of workers' compensation.
Our insurance and reinsurance businesses are growing rapidly all over the world. We wrote $23.8 billion in gross premiums in 2021, which is up over $4.8 billion from 2020, essentially all organic. It took us 18 years to reach $4.8 billion. We worked that in one year in 2021. Congratulations must go to all our presidents who produced this result. Our decentralized approach works well. As we have disclosed in our press release, Matthew Wilson, our president of Brit, took ill late last year. He's undergoing treatment, and we expect him to be back in 2022. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. We were fortunate that Martin Thompson, the former president of RSA Canada, joined us and is the interim CEO of Brit, while Mark Allen, who's doing an outstanding job, is building Ki.
More on Ki from Peter. All through 2020 on our conference calls, I had highlighted to you that as shown on page 188 of our 2019 annual report or page 201 of our 2020 annual report, there were only four years out of 34 years when we had a negative investment return. In each case, we rebounded significantly the next year. For the last time from that table, and you've heard this many a time from me. 1990, investment portfolios went down 4.4%. 1991, they went up 14.6%. 1999, down 2.7%. 2000, the next year, up 12.2%. 2013, down 4.3%. 2014, up 8.6%.
In 2016, down 2.2%. The following year, 2017, up 6.8%. It was only four times that our portfolios went down in 34 years at all mark to market. Each time, investors worried about our investments, and investment results were much better than expected. In the first quarter of 2020, as you know, we had a negative 3.6% return on our investment portfolio. By the end of the year, our investment returns more than reversed, and we ended the year with a positive return of 2.4%. Our investment return in 2021 was 9.2%, which resulted in a total investment return of $4.4 billion. Please note that's with half the portfolio earning nothing because it is in cash and short-term securities.
Of course, this includes $1.5 billion from Digit, where they have completed a significant portion of the announced $200 million capital raise at a valuation of $3.5 billion. Kamesh Goyal has done an outstanding job at Digit, and Digit is growing at 30%-40% per year, and it's profitable. Our history has shown that our returns are very lumpy, and this has worked for us over the last 36 years. We have never focused on steady quarterly earnings, even though the stock market loves it currently. We have increased our book value per share over 36 years at 18% per year. That's long- term for you, 36 years. Here's how our major common stock positions have done mark to market in our financial statements in 2020. Stamper was up 81%.
CIB Bank was up 18%. Terry Wilson up 33%. IIFL Wealth, 42%. BlackBerry, up 41%. The top 20 mark to market positions, which we have to mark to market in our, on our balance sheet, is up 30%. Not included in the above are our associates and consolidated investments, which we've begun showing you in our annual report last year. It'll be in this year's annual report. Here's how these large positions did in 2020. Eurobank up 33%. Atlas Corp up 31%. Quess up 38%. Resolute up 134%. Fairfax India up 31%. Recipe up 7%. Thomas Cook up 27%. On average, they were up 30%. I've mentioned to you that Greece is the best business-friendly country in Europe.
Our Eurobank is now trading yesterday at EUR 1.13 versus eighty-nine cents euro at year-end 2021. That's up 27%. We just think it still has a long way to go. Our book value per share, as I said, was up 34% in 2021. However, this does not include the increase in our equity accounted investments and our consolidated investments, which are not mark to market. If we did mark to market, we would add $346 million, or $15 a share on a pre-tax basis, being the excess of fair value over carrying value as of December 31st, 2021. In the quarter, we recorded additional unrealized gains on Digit of $668 million.
Upon control and consolidation, which is subject to regulatory approval, we anticipate additional gains of approximately $400 million or $17 per share on a pre-tax basis. If these are added to our book value, of course, it's straight arithmetic, our book value will go from $631 per share to $660 a share. As I've said previously, long-term value investing had gone through a very difficult time for about a decade now. Valuations of value-oriented stocks versus growth stocks, particularly technology, have never been so extreme in the last few years, exceeding even the extremes of the dotcom era in 2000. As the economy continues to normalize and interest rates continue to rise because of inflation, we expect a reverse to the mean, with value-oriented stocks coming to the fore.
We continue to believe our common stock positions are very undervalued. I remind you that in the three years, and I've said this to you before, two thousand to two thousand and two downturn, most stock market indices were down about 50%, but our stock portfolio was up 100%. Throughout 2020 and 2021, I stated publicly that the market price of Fairfax shares was ridiculously cheap. In the fourth quarter, we had the opportunity to complete a substantial issuer bid for purchasing and canceling two million shares at $500 per share for a cash payment of $1 billion. The substantial issuer bid was done in conjunction with a 9.9% sale of Odyssey Group for cash consideration of $900 million, which resulted in a gain of $429 million.
Combined, the two transactions were essentially capital and cash neutral for us. We were able to buy back two million shares at $500 per share, well below our current book value of $631 per share. The intrinsic value of our company is much higher. Just to give you one example, our gross premiums were up 25% in 2021. On a per share basis, which is what counts in the long- term, our gross premiums per share were up 38% because of the fact that we have reduced our shares outstanding by two million. At December 31st, 2021, the company's insurance and reinsurance companies held $24.9 billion in cash and short-dated investments, representing 50.3% of the portfolio investments.
With every 100 basis point increase in interest rates, they've already gone up 30 basis points. This would provide us with additional $250 million of additional investment income. We continue to have approximately $1.5 billion at the holding company, predominantly in cash and short-term securities, and our $2 billion bank line is totally drawn at year-end. Please note our cash in the holding company, as I've said to you before, is to meet any and every contingency that Fairfax might face. We're not making any long-term investments with this cash other than to support our insurance and reinsurance operations if needed. I will now pass the call to Peter Clarke, our President and Chief Operating Officer, to comment on our insurance and reinsurance operations. Peter?
Thank you, Prem. Our companies continued to produce outstanding underlying results with strong organic growth. Our gross premium was up 32% in the fourth quarter, and for the year, premium was up 25%, generating gross premiums written of $23.8 billion. We finished the year off strong with a combined ratio in the fourth quarter of 88.1% and a combined ratio of 95% for the year. This produced record underwriting profit of $801 million, up 160% from 2020, despite absorbing over $1.1 billion of catastrophe losses in the year. It is expected that the industry will have in excess of $100 billion of catastrophe losses in 2021, the second-highest ever.
By comparison, in 2020, we produced an underwriting profit of $309 million, a 97.8% combined ratio, reflecting catastrophe losses of $644 million or 4.7 combined ratio points, and COVID-19 losses of $669 million or 4.8 combined ratio points. In 2021, our COVID-19-related losses amounted to $129 million. On the underwriting front, Zenith and Northbridge reported the lowest combined ratios for 2021, being 88% and 89% respectively, while Allied World also had a strong year at 93%. Odyssey Group and Brit had elevated combined ratios still below 100% driven by catastrophe losses. As mentioned, our gross premium for the year was up 25%, an increase of approximately $4.8 billion from the previous year.
This growth was made possible by favorable market conditions that prevail in many of our markets, particularly in North America. Odyssey Group's gross premiums were up 29%, with continued expansion in both its insurance and reinsurance segments and ended the year strong with premium up 41% in the fourth quarter. Allied World grew its premiums by 25%, with growth especially strong in directors and officers liability, professional liability, and excess casualty segments. Brit's premiums were up 34% for the year, including Ki, its innovative follow-on syndicate that started writing business in 2021. It should be noted that under accounting standards, Brit must consolidate 100% of Ki's results as it has effective control of the company, even though it has less than a 50% economic interest. Excluding Ki, Brit's gross premiums were up 17%.
In Canada, Northbridge increased its premium by 23% in U.S. dollar terms as it continues to register favorable rate increases, strong retention, and a healthy growth in new business. Crum & Forster increased its top line by 20%, driven by its accident and health, commercial lines, and surplus and specialty divisions. Growth at Zenith continued to be more modest as it continues to face the headwinds of the competitive workers' compensation market in the United States. Our international operations continued its expansion as well with premium growth of approximately $524 million year-over-year. Fairfax Asia's premiums were up 27% this year and included two quarters from recently consolidated Singapore Re. Our companies in South America, Central and Eastern Europe, and in South Africa all registered strong growth in the year.
Entering 2022, across most of Fairfax, we see significant opportunity for continued growth. While absolute rate increases will taper in some lines, overall rate level is expected to remain attractive. Our management teams are focused in each of their companies on extending the gains made over the last several years. As previously mentioned, our combined ratio of 95% included 7.2 points of catastrophe losses. Hurricane Ida, U.S. winter storms, and the European floods were the main drivers of the catastrophe losses, which resulted in losses of $408 million, $246 million, and $220 million respectively. Odyssey Group and Brit felt the effects of the catastrophe losses the most, adding 10 and 17 points on their combined ratio.
Brit had a very strong ending to the year, bringing its combined ratio down to 96.8% for the year. As mentioned previously, Ki is consolidated into Brit's results. For the year excluding Ki, Brit's combined ratio was 95%. Ki's combined ratio was 113.5% for the year as its earned premiums catches up with its underwriting expenses and its catastrophe losses. We expect Ki will increase Brit's underwriting profits over time, and this began in the fourth quarter with Ki posting an 88% combined ratio for the quarter. Mark Allan and his team have done an outstanding job in their first year of business. Both Brit and Crum & Forster completed loss portfolio transfers of prior year reserves in the quarter.
The transfer of the reserves are accounted for as negative premium and reduced net written and earned premium for Crum & Forster and Brit by $358 million and $344 million respectively. Each company's combined ratio benefited by approximately half a combined ratio point for the year. For the year, our insurance and reinsurance companies recorded favorable reserve development of $356 million, or 2.2 points on our combined ratio. This compares to $455 million or 3.3 points in 2020. For the full year 2021, our favorable development includes $74 million of unfavorable development relating to changes in our COVID-19 ultimate losses from 2020. As of the end of the year, we hold $417 million in net unpaid claims for COVID-19 losses, of which 71% is IBNR.
We believe the reserve position in our operating companies continues to strengthen as we expand with today's well-priced business. Our expense ratio continues to benefit from the sharp increase in premium volume. Our overall underwriting expense is one point lower year-over-year, helped mainly by Allied World, where the expense ratio dropped two points in 2021 versus 2020. All in all, we are very pleased with the performance of our companies in 2021. In the current year, market conditions remain attractive. We expect continued growth and the possibility of improved underwriting results. Our companies are very well-positioned to capitalize on the opportunities within their markets. The decentralized operating system of Fairfax is critical to our success. I will now pass the call to Jen Allen, our Chief Financial Officer, to comment on our investment results, our non-insurance companies' performance, and overall financial position.
Thank you, Peter. The strong results of the fourth quarter, when combined with our first nine months of 2021, resulted in a record year for Fairfax. We reported net earnings attributed to Fairfax shareholders of $931 million and just over $3.4 billion in the fourth quarter and full year 2021 respectively, with book value per basic share at December 31st, 2021 of $630.60, which represented a full-year growth in book value per basic share of 34.2%, which has been adjusted for the $10 per common share dividend that was paid in the first quarter of 2021. Peter has already provided detailed commentary on our insurance and reinsurance companies, so I'll begin my remarks on the results of our non-insurance consolidated companies.
Looking at the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to 2020, excluding the impact of Fairfax India's performance fees, operating income of the non-insurance companies improved by $124 million, principally reflecting favorable results from our restaurant and retail segments, which benefited from reduced COVID-19 related lockdown restrictions, lower operating losses at Thomas Cook India, which also benefited from reduced COVID-19 related lockdown restrictions in India, and operating income in the other segment in the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to an operating loss in the fourth quarter of 2020, principally reflecting the deconsolidation of Fairfax Africa and its subsidiaries on December 8th, 2020.
Turning to the full year, 2021 compared to 2020, excluding the impact of Fairfax India's performance fees, operating income of the non-insurance companies improved by $257 million, principally reflecting improvement of $156 million of operating income from our restaurant and retail segment, which benefited from the reduced COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, strong growth at Golf Town, and the strengthening of the Canadian dollar compared to the U.S. dollar, which was partially offset by lower government subsidies received in 2021 compared to 2020.
We had higher share profit from Fairfax India's investments in associates, lower operating loss at Thomas Cook India, which benefited from reduced COVID-19 related lockdown restrictions in India. An improvement of $65 million of operating income in the other segment in 2021, reflecting again the deconsolidation of Fairfax Africa on December 8th, 2020, with this segment producing an operating profit for 2021 compared to the operating loss in 2020. As noted in the full year of 2021, Fairfax India recorded a performance fee which was $85 million, with pretax earnings attributed to Fairfax shareholders benefiting by about $60 million, as Fairfax India's non-controlling interest is allocated at 70% of Fairfax India's expense.
At December 31st, 2021, the pretax excess of fair value over the adjusted carrying value of our non-insurance associates and certain consolidated non-insurance subsidiaries that the company considers to be portfolio investments was $346 million, which compared to a deficiency or an adjusted carrying value that was higher than the fair value at December 31st, 2020, at $663 million. A significant improvement in 2021 at just over $1 billion, with the pretax excess of $346 million not reflected in our book value per share, but has been regularly reviewed by management as an indicator of the underlying investment performance.
Our non-insurance associates accounted for $883 million of that appreciation, principally attributed to Atlas Corp. of $285 million, Eurobank of $278 million, Quess $208 million, and Resolute $74 million. Improvements in certain consolidated non-insurance subsidiaries of $126 million related to Fairfax India of $94 million, and Thomas Cook at $59 million. As we've mentioned before, we're focused on our organic growth, supported by smaller friendly acquisitions with a commitment to growing long-term shareholder value.
With our concerns over inflation at December 31st, we continue to hold a significant portion of the portfolio in cash, short-term investments, and other short-dated fixed income securities that represented $24.9 billion or 50.3% of the insurance and reinsurance company's investment portfolio, which was comprised of $21.8 billion of subsidiary cash and short-term investments, and $3.1 billion of short-dated U.S. Treasuries. This dampened our interest income in the short term, but has protected us from the impact of inflation and rising rates.
Our interest and dividend income of $641 million in 2021 was down from the $769 million in 2020, primarily reflecting that strategy to invest in a shorter-term debt and not reach for yield, which resulted in the lower interest income earned principally due to decreased sovereign bond yields, sales of U.S. Treasury bonds throughout 2020, and net sales of our U.S. corporate bonds in 2021. This was partially offset by higher interest income earned on our first mortgage loans that were purchased in 2021, and increased dividend income from our common stock portfolio.
We added net purchases of first mortgage loans of $827 million in 2021, which are secured by high-quality real estate in the U.S., Ireland, and the U.K., and have terms less than five years. These investments will provide some benefit to our interest income in the coming years, along with the benefit from the more recent rate environment. We'll be able to take advantage of the rise in the short-term interest rates given the significant portion that we hold in the cash and short terms in the portfolio.
Looking to our consolidated share of profit of associates of $402 million in 2021, it reflected strong results from our investments in associates and were principally comprised of a share of profit of $162 million from Eurobank, $76 million from Resolute, $70 million from Atlas Corp, and $56 million from Gulf Insurance. That compared to losses of $112 million from our investments in associates in 2021 that included impairment losses of $240 million, and we had no impairment losses recorded in 2021. Net gains on the investments in the fourth quarter of 2021 were $938 million, and over $3.4 billion for the full year of 2021.
The net gains on investments in the fourth quarter of 2021 and full year 2021 were primarily comprised of the following. The largest component of the net gains were net gains of $368 million and just over $2.3 billion from our equity exposures that reflected the following. In the fourth quarter, our net gains of $171 million on common stock that benefited from the appreciation in holdings such as Commercial International Bank and Stelco, and $182 million on other equity derivatives, which were mainly our equity total return swaps, including the total return swaps on the Fairfax voting shares.
For the full year, we had net gains of $1.3 billion on common stock that benefited from the appreciation of holdings such as Stelco, BlackBerry, limited partnerships in the U.S., Canada, and Asia. In $632 million on other equity derivatives that included our total return swaps, again, the Fairfax voting shares, and our investment in the Atlas Corp warrants. Secondly, our net gains on investments included $668 million or just under $1.5 billion in each respective period on our investment in the Digit compulsory convertible preferred shares, which I'll discuss in a moment. These net gains were partially offset by net losses of $116 million and $287 million on the bond portfolio.
That primarily related to our U.S. and other corporate bonds. Couple of additional comments on our $668 million and the $1.5 billion unrealized gains that were recorded on our investment in Digit compulsory convertible preferred shares. If you recall from our prior quarter conference call, we hold a 49% equity interest in the associate Go Digit Infoworks Services, or we refer to it as Digit, who entered into the agreement with certain third party investors whereby its underlying insurance subsidiary, Digit Insurance, was to raise $200 million of new equity shares, valuing Digit Insurance at approximately $3.5 billion. In addition to our 49% equity interest in Digit, as recorded under the equity method of accounting as an investment associate, we also hold Digit compulsory convertible preferred shares that are accounted for at fair value through profit and loss.
Digit has now successfully completed a substantial portion of that $200 million equity raise, with the remaining tranche expected to close in early 2022 and subject to regulatory customary closing conditions. These recent transactions value Digit Insurance at approximately $3.5 billion, which the company supported by an industry-accepted discounted cash flow model to incorporate unobservable discount rates and long-term growth rates. As a result, we recorded the unrealized gains of $668 million and $1.5 billion in the respective periods. A few key transactions I wanna highlight that were completed in the quarter, starting at our insurance and reinsurance companies.
On December 15th, 2021, Odyssey Group had issued shares representing an aggregate of 9.9% equity interest to subsidiaries of the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board and OMERS, the pension plan for Ontario municipal employees, for cash consideration of $900 million. That resulted in the company recording an aggregate increase to common shareholders equity of $429 million. To note, there was no gain recorded on the remaining 90% equity interest retained by the company as Fairfax maintained control and continues to consolidate Odyssey Group. At the holding company, on October 29th, Fairfax redeemed its $85 million principal amount of 4.142% unsecured senior notes that were due on February 7th, 2024 at par.
Then on December 29th, we completed our substantial issuer bid, pursuant to which we purchased and canceled two million subordinate voting shares at the price of $500 per share for the aggregate cash consideration of $1 billion that was recorded as a reduction to our common shareholders' equity. Our liquidity position of the company remains strong with our cash and investments at the holding company of approximately $1.5 billion at December 31st. We, as we've noted before, that holding company cash supports the decentralized structure and will enable us to deploy capital to the insurance companies efficiently.
We continued to be prudent on our capital deployment strategy with our total debt to total cap ratio, excluding the consolidated non-insurance companies, decreasing by 5.6% to 24.1% at December 31st, 2021, from the 29.7% at the prior year-end, primarily reflecting the significant increase in our shareholders' equity that was attributed to the net earnings of just over the $3.4 billion and a reduction in debt at the holding company and our insurance and reinsurance operations. Before closing, I wanted to provide an update on our commitment to ESG, which has been very meaningful for Fairfax since we began. As we've noted before, in 2020, we published our first ESG report that highlighted the importance and achievements we've made to date.
Recognizing there's always room to grow and improve, we continue to enhance our initiatives throughout 2021, and we're pleased to say that we've recently published an updated ESG report. The 2021 report is available on our website, which now incorporates some expanded information on our investment processes, sustainable investments, and sustainable investment initiatives. Before I turn the call back over to Prem, just wanted to remind everyone that in addition to the press release that was issued yesterday on the year-end results, Fairfax's 2021 annual report will be posted on the company's website on Friday, March 4th. Thank you, and I'll turn the call now back over to Prem.
Hey, thank you, Jen. We look forward now to answering your questions. Please give us your name and your company name, and try to limit your questions to only one so it's fair to everyone on the call. Okay, Brittany, we are ready for any questions that our shareholders might have.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star then one. Our first question comes from Jaeme Gloyn from National Bank Financial. Your line is now open.
Yeah, thanks. Good morning. Just wanted to get some clarity on the loss portfolio transfers. Can you just walk us through the strategy thinking? Should we expect to see more of this stuff going forward? A little bit more color on that. Thanks.
Terrific. No, thank you. Peter, you wanna answer that question?
Sure, sure. Yeah. No, we did two loss portfolio transfers in the fourth quarter. They're really just one-off events. One was that Brit that we did is a third-party transaction, but with RiverStone International, who of course we know very well. Brit's done a number of transactions with them over the years.
Essentially what it does is, you know, it frees up resources for their current claim staff to focus on growth and their ongoing business. It frees up capital as well as you're transferring the reserves to a third party. In the U.S., Clem Forster also entered into a loss portfolio transfer, but that was with our RiverStone, our own internal LPT. Again, they transferred their reserves, free up resources. RiverStone has some excess capacity and specialize in construction risks and construction defect, and also through BNFF handle workers' comp claims. So those were the reserves that were transferred to RiverStone.
Thank you, Peter. If we go on to the next question, Brittany.
Our next question comes from Charles Frischer from LF Partners. Your line is now open.
Good morning, Prem.
Good morning, Charles.
To tell you, Warren Buffett has written extensively about the importance of float. He said that even though float is a liability, if the combined ratio is below 100%, it's actually an asset. Berkshire has $130 billion in float against $700 billion in market cap. Our Fairfax has $26 billion in float against $13 billion in market cap, and we are running at a 95% combined ratio. Can you tell us how you think about the value of float of Fairfax? It's remarkable.
You know, you're exactly right, Charles. You understand it. $26 billion of float, like it's just a significant number. Combined ratio is 95%. Our reserving is very strong. It just shows you how undervalued our company is. That's why I've said we bought back our stock of two million shares. We continue to buy back stock. I mean, we can't control the price of our stock. I said it's ridiculously cheap two years ago, said it again, and then we bought two million shares. We're not looking at expanding again, Ted. We're not gonna issue any shares or buy anything.
Our first consideration is going to buy back shares, not at the expense of our financial position, not at the expense of taking advantage of the property cat in the hot market. As we've grown by 25%, Charles, you know, you follow these insurance companies, you compare our growth to anyone else, all internal, and you'll find that 25% is a very high number. We've got companies like Allied World at $6 billion, Odyssey Group at pretty well $6 billion, Crum & Forster at $4 billion. Like, we've got pretty significant companies, but it's a decentralized structure. We can take advantage of the opportunity as we see it, always looking after our customers, because the price we're getting for our product is a fair price now. We're getting paid to take the risk.
Yeah, no, Charles, you're exactly right. $26 billion in float, the market will see it over time. Thank you, Charles. Next question, please, Brittany.
Our next question comes from Mark Dwelle from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Yeah, good morning. I may be remiss if I didn't comment.
Good morning, Mark.
That this is the best combined ratio I've seen in the 20 years that I've followed the company. Congratulations on that. I wanted to focus on a couple of other items that were a little less attractive in the quarter. I want to start with the corporate overhead and other income expense line. It's much elevated compared to what the normal run rate was. It was $183 million expense. Is there anything unusual or one-time in nature within that number?
Yeah, Mark, we'll answer that. Just for your information, that combined ratio, you'll notice that the reserve redundancies were very limited. We've grown by, as I said, very significantly. If you go back in 2001, 2002 and 2003, the last time we've had a hard market like this, we've more than doubled our premium. The reserve redundancies come over a long period of time. We just think our company is so well reserved that the redundancies we will see for a long period of time. The combined ratio is a measure. It's a good measure, but it doesn't reflect the underlying value that's been created in 2021 to the growth that we've experienced.
Peter or Jen, on the expense question that Mark had.
Yes, sure. In the annual report, there will be more details on that corporate overhead. We'll refer you to the MD&A when that comes out. High level, that number includes our expense at the holding company and our insurance companies. It also includes things like goodwill and intangible assets that will be amortized through on acquisitions. On a year-over-year basis, really, if you're looking at that, it's probably driven mainly by the increase in some of the intangibles that have been amortized and some goodwill numbers that are being modestly impaired going through the, in the quarter. On a YTD basis, it's partly offset by increased management fees that we've been able to obtain, given that we have a stronger investment portfolio that's actually offset in income.
It's a bit of a harder number to get. I appreciate that in the press release. But in the MD&A, as I said, there is a lot more details that will be provided.
Mark, yeah, we had the corporate overhead has broken up very much. A lot of detail in our annual report. That's coming soon, and you'll get all the details that you want. Any further question, Mark? Brittany, next question.
Okay. Our next question comes from Craig Campanian from Leucadia Investments. Your line is now open.
Hello, Prem. I had a question on the Dutch Auction. Can you hear me okay?
Yes. Yeah, I can hear you.
So the-
Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah, that was a great idea. A comment. Computer share, I guess, they act as depository. We had-
Yes.
A problem with them, and I would suggest maybe changing companies. From what I can tell, they never sent a letter of transmittal to shares held in their accounts in the U.S. I think they did in Canada, but not in the U.S. I would just suggest changing companies for future transaction as a plan provider. The dividend, yeah, that was great. We got our $10. Still like to see, like, maybe a midyear special dividend of $10 for all the people that are holding Fairfax until they go to their golden coffins. Yeah, it's great to get the Dutch auction.
Hey, that's thank you for your comment. Would you be kind enough to send us a little note, if you don't mind, on your experience so that we can reflect on that?
Yeah.
Okay. We'll check that out for you and make sure it doesn't happen the next time or see how we can remedy that. In terms of dividend, you know, we paid a $10 dividend. Our focus is on buyback shares. We think it's like Charles Frischer, the fellow who said it previously, you know, we got $26 billion in float, and anytime we can. You can see all these numbers per share in the annual report. Anytime we can buy back our stock, that's what we should do. In effect, we're doing that for you by buying back the stock. We're giving you a dividend, of course, not in the form of a dividend, but in terms of a buyback.
Appreciate your question, and we'll keep that in mind. Brittany, next question, please.
Absolutely. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one and record your name clearly when prompted. Our next question comes from Mark Dwelle from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Good morning. I think I might have gotten cut off there before I got a chance to ask my second one, so.
Thank you, Mark.
I have two other questions. Well, actually a third. One is if you did have any idea of when the annual report was gonna come due. But the more important questions, I guess, I wanted to ask on the swaps related to Fairfax's own shares. I know a lot of those were one-year swaps that were taken out in the fourth quarter a year ago. Were those extended forward if the duration rolled forward or they just opened and rolling?
Yes. The annual report date, when is that again, Jen?
It's Friday, March the fourth.
Friday, March the fourth. Peter, on the TRS swaps, we expect to extend them. Peter?
Yeah, they've been rolled and extended, so they're still out there.
Mark, any other comments you had?
I am so sorry. I cut his line off. Mark-
Yeah, no problem. Brittany, he'll come back again if he had a question. Next question, please.
Okay. Our next question comes from Lance Gadd from Gadd Family LLP. Your line is now open.
Yes. Hi. Hi. We,
Good morning.
We're a private charitable 501(c)(3) foundation in the U.S., had a terrible time with the Dutch Auction. It's our opinion that the dividend nature, the Canadian tax nature of the distribution wasn't really disclosed well in the offering document. We tried to talk to your law firm, U.S. counsel for Torys in the U.S.
Yes.
They never returned phone calls or emails. We sent notes to Fairfax. No one ever replied to anything. It turned out the Canadian, our broker withheld 25% of the dividend as a dividend as a Canadian withholding tax, even though we are a U.S.-exempt charitable foundation. It turns out it's a pretty difficult thing to fix. The brokers don't do it. Accountants don't know about it. We ended up having to hire a specialist firm in New York to try to get the money back from Canada. It's gonna cost our fund 20% of the dividend withheld, our private foundation. Anyway, the other person mentioned about depository trust or whatever. I think the whole thing was done very, very poorly from a legal and a disclosure standpoint.
I will tell you, I have been a member of the New York Bar for 52 years, so I have a pretty good
Okay.
Opinion about it.
We're very sorry. First of all, we're very sorry for your experience. We disclosed it in the operating circular, but please send a note to me directly, and I'll make sure that we examine exactly what happened. If you'd be kind enough to lay it out for me. We just thought it was, you know, this is a significant issue, and it's something that's done quite often. We are aware of the concerns, problems in the United States, but we would, I'd love you to send me a note, and I'll make sure we follow up. Try as best as we can not to-
Right.
not to repeat that.
You don't disclose your email or your contact information on the website, so we didn't have your information.
It's very simple. It's P_Watsa. P_Watsa@fairfax.ca.
Okay.
Okay.
One other concern from the company standpoint, doing something without disclosure or whatever, you don't want to open yourself to a class action lawsuit for that. Anyway.
On that front, we're not worried at all. We gave you full disclosure, total disclosure. I talked about the stocks being undervalued for two years, we're not worried about that. Yeah, you know, can't stop anyone from a transaction lawsuit. But we were firmly sure in our minds that we had disclosed every piece of information before making that substantial issuer bid. But let me respond to your note to me in an email, and then we'll take that forward. Thank you for your question. Brittany, next question, please.
Okay, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. Our next question comes from Inkit Kabari, a private individual. Your line is now open.
Don't throw me out again on this call here. No.
Hi. Hello?
Yeah. Like, I have Azarga, Lumigan, and Dorzox. It's not even Dorzox. Sorry. It's just Azarga and Lumigan is what I have on file.
Yes. Thank you very much. Brittany, next question, please.
Our next question comes from William Gilmore Sickle from Sickle. Your line is now open.
Hi. It's good to hear things are going well, Prem. I've been following your stock since I think that the housing crisis, with a value investment attitude. I would be remiss in my duty and just not doing my job if I didn't understand the investments that I made. It's too bad that the last caller had some issue about what may or may not have happened. My only question for you guys is, currently, in your fixed income portfolio, can you estimate the duration?
Yeah. Yeah. Peter or Jen on that duration question?
Yeah, sure. In the annual report, we will provide the duration on the fixed income portfolio. We're currently looking at probably less than one year, about $6 billion of the portfolio. If you look kind of one to five years, it's about $7 billion, and the rest of it makes up the residual five-10-year position.
Almost 50%. Our bond portfolios are very short-term with very little risk in terms of term. We think interest rates are going up, and we thought we weren't getting paid for taking interest rate risk. It's all pretty Treasuries and very safe bonds, and it's very short term. Most of them are less than three years in duration, less than three years in term and duration. It's a very short-term bond portfolio. We will. Most companies I think in our industry have reached for yield. I don't think you'll find another company that's taken 30% of its portfolio in cash and short-term investments. We've been worried about this for some time.
Our interest income, we think will go up. Our bond portfolios will not go down. Our capital will not be reduced because of rising interest rates. Interest rates have already gone up by 50 basis points since year-end.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Britney, next question, please.
Okay. Our next question comes from Ashvin Moorjani from Edward Jones. Your line is now open.
Thank you, and congrats, Mr. Watsa, on the wonderful year, the amazing year.
Thank you very much.
No problem. My question is about Fairfax India. Is there a philosophical change in terms of willing to pay up for higher growth or low risk investments? Or is it just a factor of you having the greater access to those countries, whereas competition in that area may not be as great for those unique assets? I was just wondering if there's a little bit of a difference in the investment philosophy in India.
No, a good question. The investment philosophy is the same. What we're trying to buy is good companies with great management who built the company, who wanna continue to build it, and want us as a partner. We're not looking at companies that are run by people who wanna sell it in three years or four years. We're not private equity. We want to be partners with founders and people who own a big share of the company and who wanna build it. That's what we've done. If you look at the investments that Chandran and our group in India have done, it's basically linked to founders. In fact, today, there's a company that a press release went out, Janux, I think, where we bought 70%.
With the founder having the 30%, and we've got a terrific track record, 10, 15 years, entrepreneur, built it from scratch, wants to continue to build the company. We'd be a good partner for people like that.
Got it. I guess the last.
Yes.
Sorry, go ahead.
Go ahead.
In terms of, I guess, a greater willingness to pay up for high ROIC companies over there, just in terms of the valuation side, basically justifiably paying up for those different types of businesses that have, I guess, greater reinvestment characteristics or growth characteristics.
Yeah, no, we look at all of that. We take that into account. You know, in India, well, the reason we like India is every company tends to grow at 30%, 40%, 50%. India's gonna rebound significantly. Thomas Cook, which, you know, went through a really tough time with tourists to India and domestic pretty well down to zero, that's gonna bounce back tremendously. You know, and companies in the restaurant business like in Canada, Recipe and companies like that will bounce back huge. Our Fairfax India has a book value close to net asset value close to $20, which we think is conservative. The stock is selling at $12 or $13.
As you've seen in the press release, we continue to buy back the stock. Fairfax India continues to reduce the shares outstanding at these good prices, we think. We're looking at it over the long- term, and we've got a very good group of companies that have performed well in the main, and that we expect to benefit. The shareholders of Fairfax India will benefit over time. India is gonna be a terrific place to put money. As we normalize, as everything becomes normal, strong economy, inflation, some rising interest rates, countries like India are gonna do very, very well. They're gonna bounce back in spades. 9% economic growth, 8%, perhaps even 10%. That's real, not including inflation.
that type of economic environment, individual companies do very, very well. Britney, next question, please.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question over the phone, please press star one and record your name clearly when prompted. Okay, our next question comes from Ankit Obari. Your line is now open.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yeah. Yeah, we can hear you. Please go ahead.
Hi, Prem. I'm a new investor with the company for last two years and not a sophisticated investor at all, so pardon me if the question might sound a little dumb. I'm trying to understand the transaction that Fairfax did with Odyssey and then used the capital to purchase the stock. Am I correct to understand that Fairfax sold 10% of Odyssey for almost $1 billion, and then used that-
Yes.
Does that not make Odyssey worth, say, $10 billion? The whole company, Fairfax, is trading at around $18 billion.
Well, that's right. That's one of the reasons we did the transaction, of course. You can see how undervalued Fairfax was. Just, Odyssey is just one company. You're very perceptive, and your reasoning is right on. That's how we saw it too.
I mean, I'm just, you know, I'm still shocked that that's possible in today's market. Thank you for doing that, and I think that was a great move. Are you guys planning to do such, you know, transactions in the future? Because I personally don't think that you should be worried about the dividend here at all if your stock is trading this cheap. Are you guys thinking about such transactions? Like, is the management sort of focused on taking advantage of this undervalued stock?
Of course. That I told you we'd buy back stock, not at the expense of our financial position and not at the expense of capital to take advantage of this hot market. Really, we're a very nimble entrepreneurial company. You saw that in our decentralized insurance operations. You saw how we expanded so significantly more than pretty well any company in North America. You'll see us take advantage of opportunity, but not at the expense of our financial position and not at the expense of our ability to take advantage of a good insurance market. Next question, please, Britney.
There are no additional questions at this time.
Thank you very much, Tiffany, and thank you all for joining this call. We will look forward to further questions, and thank you again for joining this call. We're having our AGM soon in April. With a little bit of luck, it's going to be an in-person AGM. We invite you all, if you can, to join us. Thank you all for joining, and thank you, Tiffany.
Thank you for your participation in today's conference. Opportunities to disconnect at this time.