Markel Group (NYSE: $MKL)

[dreamybear]

Just discovered there's a "baby Berkshire", same same but different ?

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Markel Group: A Baby Berkshire Hathaway
https://www.bbae.com/blog/markel-group-a...-hathaway/
"Markel has outperformed the S&P 500 but underperformed Berkshire since its December 1986 IPO."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markel_Group
Markel Group Inc. is a group of companies headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, and originally founded in 1930 as an insurance company.

https://www.mklgroup.com/who-we-are/shareholder-letters

[Wildreamz]

Markel Group is quite famous, as the CIO (Thomas S. Gayner) frequently appear on Youtube investment related channels. 

That said, since the late 2000s they have been consistent but underperforming SPY and QQQ.

Gayner has been vocal against investing in tech-focused companies (circa 10 years ago), and focused on traditional value companies, not sure if his philosophy has changed over the years.

[Bibi]

I have this since 2022 and the returns have been average about 7% per annum after taking into account of USD depreciation against SGD. Berkshire once held shares in MKL but they sold it off i htink last year.

MKL stocks investment portfolio consist of many shares, close to a 100 i think. Too diversified imo might as well buy S&P. And its top 2 investments are Berk A and Berk B. It has under performed Berk and other pure insurers like Allstate and Progressive for quite few years.

[weijian]

I have this since 2022 and the returns have been average about 7% per annum after taking into account of USD depreciation against SGD. Berkshire once held shares in MKL but they sold it off i htink last year.

MKL stocks investment portfolio consist of many shares, close to a 100 i think. Too diversified imo might as well buy S&P. And its top 2 investments are Berk A and Berk B. It has under performed Berk and other pure insurers like Allstate and Progressive for quite few years.

hi Bibi,

Since Buffett thinks that BV is a good metric for valuing BH, I suppose BV is a good metric for valuing Markel Group. I have liberally copied/paste gurufocus's BV summary as below (in italics):

During the past 12 months, Markel Group's average Book Value Per Share Growth Rate was 25.60% per year. During the past 3 years, the average Book Value Per Share Growth Rate was 7.40% per year. During the past 5 years, the average Book Value Per Share Growth Rate was 9.60% per year. During the past 10 years, the average Book Value Per Share Growth Rate was 8.60% per year. During the past 13 years, the highest 3-Year average Book Value Per Share Growth Rate of Markel Group was 81.60% per year. The lowest was 5.20% per year. And the median was 15.30% per year.

So your last 3 years' return roughly tracks its BV growth, which isn't a surprise.  Of course, we always hope for BV expansion for more gains (when Mr Market recognizes the "quality of its gains and rerates it) and avoid BV compression (either when Mr Market loses enthusiasm of the quality of its gains or worst off, believes value is been increasingly been trapped).