I was trying to value Markel today , and I found out that it has securities worth 13.5 billion in companies like Berkshire and Google etc . I wanted to value this at 50 percent of its current value (in case of a crash) . And it has a cash of 3.5 billion in hand(I didn’t include this in my valuation for disaster scenario) . It generated about 2.5 billion in fcf last year . Combined fcf for fy 26 first two quarters was half the value of the free cash flow generated for q1+q2 fy 2025 , primarily due to some timing related payments. So I still value its fcf for this year to be a modest 2 billion dollars by removing the noise. So when i try to value this today by assigning a p/fcf multiple of 7 which gives me a value of 14 billion for its operating business. Adding up its value of securities with 50 percent discount, i get another 6.75 billion, which gives me a total value of about 20.75 billion dollars .
I know that the 50 percent is some doomsday discount but i still believe that even companies like Google,Amazon, Brookfield and Berkshire etc have at least a 30 percent drawdown in store for them at these valuations( this is for me ) .
So if u assign a 30 percent discount : value of equity is 9 billion dollars . So you get a little more than 23 billion dollars as its value.
Current Market Cap : 22.25 billion USD vs (20.75 and 23 billion) , would indicate it is at least fairly valued at today’s prices .
What this means (assigning 50 percent discount to equities) : i expect fcf growth to be around 6.5 percent for next 10 years and equity from that discounted value to be growing at 12 percent for next 10 years , this would give an equity valuation of 47.22 billion dollars .
So even if you buy at 22 billion usd today, you will get a return of 11.3 percent every year on Markel using doomsday valuation.
You may even get 13 to 14 percent return by loosening on the doomsday.
My buy price : 1600 - 1700 range
This is my valuation though,which i am doing leaving my office work , so feel free to correct me .