No. of Recommendations: 4
I don’t know if this is exactly what you are advocating, but Fairfax Financial buys all award shares on the open market.
“As part of that initiative, close to 10 years ago we decided to have a general principle that our annual bonuses to senior executives across the company would be awarded 50% in cash and 50% in Fairfax shares that vest in five years. As these bonus shares are awarded, the company buys the shares in the market (which comes out of shares outstanding) and they are recorded as treasury shares, as shown in the table below. As the shares are vested and or exercised, the shares are then reissued and come out of treasury shares and back into shares outstanding.
“You can see over the years our treasury shares have increased from 0.6 million to 1.8 million today. We think this is fantastic and hope they continue to grow over time.
“You will notice that the treasury shares acquired have remained relatively consistent over the last five-year period, especially when compared to our increased employee numbers. Our total compensation, including benefits, paid to our employees worldwide was $2.9 billion in 2025, of which $189 million was awarded in Fairfax shares. As I have said in the past, we would love to have all our employees as owners of Fairfax. Of course, no new shares are issued for these plans. They are all bought in the market.”
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