Leucadia has always been a fascinating company to me in that its founders’ Ian Cumming and Joseph Steinberg, have established a company with an extraordinary track record of building shareholder value with a wide variety of obscure businesses.  Now, Cumming and Steinberg have stepped down and the company is being led by Richard Handler and Brian Friedman from Jefferies, which merged with Leucadia.  The company has sold off some of its non-core businesses and now has a much greater concentration on financial services but that certainly can change over time.  The stock is reasonably priced and receives very little attention, as I don’t think anybody has a firm understanding on what Leucadia will look like 5 years from now.  I believe that this uncertainty has created an opportunity in the stock.  Jefferies is in a sweet spot as the largest pure play investment bank and its earnings will allow Leucadia to fully take advantage of its huge net operating losses.  The following shareholder letter is very interesting and I’m excited to see how the company develops over the next few years and beyond.

 

 http://www.leucadia.com/c-p_letters/luk_c-p2013.pdf