I was interested to read that Prem Watsa, the Canadian equivalent of Warren Buffet and Bank of Ireland’s biggest private sector shareholder, is selling half of his remaining stake in the bank.

He originally held almost 9% of the bank, when he bought shares at 10c each in a 2011 deal to prevent it from being nationalised. This sale will see almost €415m worth of shares placed on the market at 23c a share, clearing him a healthy profit of more than €200m.

Never one to miss an opportunity, in 2015 his company was contacted by the former regulator with the Central Bank and now CEO of FBD, Fiona Muldoon, to rescue the troubled insurer. He subsequently provided a €70m loan through Fairfax to help the insurer meet tough new solvency standards imposed by the EU.

The loan was provided through a 10-year bond where Fairfax has the right to convert into a 19% stake in the Irish insurer should the shares move to €8.50 over a period of time. This would make him the largest investor in FBD and roughly about the same size as the original Farmer Business Development (Co-op) share. Shares in FBD are currently trading around €6.75 and are more or less unchanged in the year.

Watsa’s Fairfax certainly likes to acquire businesses and manage them at arm’s length. It already owns a string of insurers. Last year it paid £1.2bn to acquire UK insurer Brit and last week it announced a deal to buy New York-listed insurer Allied World.

In this most recent deal it paid 19 times 2016 earnings or 1.3 times its most recent book value.