Parsad

They had their hands in a couple of businesses that they needed to get out of. The son, Craig Maier, was partly responsible for getting them out of those businesses and focus on the core burger business. The problem was, they began to saturate their burger territory, and they agreed to franchise the Golden Corral restaurants to diversify their business. Unfortunately it's more like di-worsify! They've gotten the Golden Corral business turned around, but the margins aren't anything like the burger business. If they just spent less on capital expenses, stifle the Golden Corral business at its current size (which seems to be the case currently), and just spend the excess cash flows on share buybacks and dividends, the stock would be much higher. On another note, have you guys noticed that the Steak'n Shake menu is now moving in the wrong direction as far as size is concerned. They are adding too many new menu items. Sardar had the strategy correct originally...focus the menu, add value, and add occasional new offerings. But now, they seem to be heading the wrong way. May cut into their margins as food costs increase and they increase the amount of food inventory they have to maintain. I do like the national one-price idea, and that should help bolster a more national focus on the business. Cheers!

Folks, The fact is that due diligence on this company outside of examining the financials and making some phone calls, is out of the realm of the average investor. MW spent probably hundreds of thousands to employ a team to dig for answers. Even then, their answers may be incorrect after spending that much money, since the common practices for legal filings, claims, etc. vary from province to province, city to city, village to village. This is in the too hard pile! There are much easier ways to double your money right here in North America. So everyone let it go, and let's just watch what unfolds. I just want someone to get their come uppance...be it TRE or MW. Cheers!

Do they own all of Big Boy or just some of them? For some reason I thought they were just a large franchisor. The thing with Big Boy is its such a tired old chain. It pains me a bit to say that. I grew up with it and loved it as a kid. They own most of the "Frisch" Big Boy restaurants...about 91 stores. Another 25 are franchised in their master limited partnership territories. Old brand, but like Steak'n Shake, they are a very well recognized brand in their market. The Frisch/Maier family controls about 29% of the stock. They are also franchisees of the Golden Corral buffet chain...about 35 restaurants. They made a mistake getting involved there. The actual "Frisch" Big Boy restaurants are cash cows, and they struggled integrating the Golden Corral chain during the last few years. It's starting to come around, but nothing like the burger restaurants. Balance sheet is good, and company-owned restaurants are undervalued on there. Debt/equity is good, but the company spends too much of their cash flows on capital expenses. All of their older restaurants are usually completely refurbished every five years, and they are now starting to open stores where the return on capital isn't particularly good relative to older stores. Great business, that needs a better capital allocator! I told Sardar about the idea some time ago, but I don't think he was interested. Wish I had more money! ;D Cheers!

Folks, Unless the post title is in the format below, I don't want it in the "Investment Ideas" section: "Ticker Symbol" - "Name of Company" That's it! No explanations, no sentences, nothing. Anything else belongs in "General Discussion". The reason being, I want the "Investment Ideas" board to act as a resource library on various companies. By clicking the "Subject" heading on that board, users get all of the companies listed in alphabetical order, with all posts related to each company in there. Anything else just clutters that board and reduces the functionality of it working as a company library. Also, please make sure you are not duplicating an existing company ticker, as I want all posts in that board to remain under the same ticker, so that we don't have fits of discussion on any given company. Thanks very much! Sanjeev

Hope you all have a good holiday! Cheers!

Wellington manages something like $665B, so a $100M position or so in TRE is not much at all. I wouldn't worry about what Wellington does, or anyone else for that matter. I don't like Block's conduct and the way he approaches this stuff, as well as the people who have associated themselves with this whole thing, but unless you can conduct enough of your own due diligence to feel confident in the stock, I wouldn't even consider touching this thing. I do look forward to watching what unfolds. Cheers!

Short, but interesting article on how so many failed banks are from the state of Georgia. Cheers! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/daily-mix/georgia-the-unlikely-epicentre-of-us-bank-closures/article2083513/

Thanks for posting the clarification. It would be sad to see a good man brought down through guilt by association. Problem is that other news sources picked up the article and the insinuation that Berkowitz was also under investigation: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-01/st-joe-says-sec-is-investigating-financial-reports-and-chairman-berkowitz.html It's too late! Damage is done. Most news sources won't pick up the correction. You guys think there won't be redemption orders for the Fairholme Fund coming in Tuesday morning? Cheers!

I believe ValueCarl went, so perhaps he can put down some notes about the meeting. Maybe Munger even had something to say about LVLT. Cheers!

No, no...that would be pure speculation! Why does everyone always blame the shorts? ;D Cheers!

In a filing today, JOE has announced that they have terminated their credit agreement which prevented them from buying back shares. Also the SEC is investigating issues related to the impairment of JOE real estate assets. I wonder who made a call to the SEC? Cheers! http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/745308/000095012311063723/b87177e8vk.htm

Happy Canada Day Smazz! We've had nothing but rain really in Vancouver. We'll still pull out the barbecue though! ;D Cheers!

What if the shorts had driven Dendreon out of business? They've won coverage of their prostate drug under Medicare. How many lives will be saved? Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-30/dendreon-wins-final-medicare-coverage-decision-on-prostate-cancer-drug.html

Here are a bunch of stories related to Munger's comments from today's presentation. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-01/berkshire-s-munger-says-wall-street-megalomania-insanity-fueled-bubble.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-01/munger-says-he-hopes-he-dies-before-berkshire-hathaway-pays-out-a-dividend.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-01/munger-praises-wells-fargo-says-bofa-decisions-a-disgrace-.html?cmpid=yhoo http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Berkshires-Munger-stands-rb-2445262105.html?x=0&.v=1 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-01/byd-can-recover-from-missteps-munger.html

Long-time Berkshire Hathaway shareholder and former director, Malcolm Chace, passed away. He was there from the beginning with Buffett. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-30/malcolm-chace-who-watched-buffett-remake-berkshire-dies-at-76.html?cmpid=yhoo

...As Berkshire Takes Wesco Off The Market. Article on Munger's annual presentation to his fans. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-30/munger-treats-hard-core-addicts-as-berkshire-takes-wesco-off-the-market.html

So it looks like playing Sean Parker in "The Social Network" triggered something in Justin Timberlake. He's part of the group buying MySpace for $35M from News Corp. Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Justin-Timberlake-part-of-apf-2481363894.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=4&asset=&ccode=

Yes, I forgot about Duncan Ross. You just told me about them recently, and I forgot. Really building quite the small group of value fund managers in Vancouver. And if you consider that Prem's company "Sixty-Two" is registered here as well...also just a few blocks away at a law office...then that is pretty amazing! ;D Not sure why he registered here long ago, but he did. Oh, one last tid-bit. Our attorney who drew up our Canadian Fund documents four years ago, is also the same attorney who drew up the original Cundill Partnership documents 30+ years ago, and he sat on the board in the early years. Small world! Cheers!

Interesting article on Andy Beal, of Beals Bank, and his interests in distressed investments. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-29/beal-becomes-billionaire-with-fdic-assets-as-he-tops-poker-pros.html

We've got a pretty hardcore group of value investors in Vancouver now...Cundill, McElvaine, Vertex, Odlum Brown, Leith-Wheeler, MPIC! ;D And we are all a few blocks from each other. Here's an article on Murray Leith of Odlum Brown. Cheers! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/a-stellar-portfolio-with-a-simple-secret-dont-overpay/article2079136/

Never understood this investment, and things aren't looking good. They need to send in Sokol to turn this thing around...oh, wait! ;D They are going to have to do something, as they are losing sales. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-28/byd-co-reports-84-decline-in-first-quarter-net-income.html

I took a look at this thing and I really like it. Google is going to have to really upgrade their software, since the Microsoft 365 products are pretty much Office products with all the features and capabilities. $7/month is pretty damn good...Canadian price...not sure why we pay more than American's! Alnesh and I used to use a Microsoft program called "Groove" when we first started Corner Market Capital, and it worked really well as it synced the files between our computers and server whenever anyone worked on something. Google took it one step further by removing the software altogether, and now Microsoft has done the same thing. You've got Coke and Pepsi fighting it out...is there room for both? What about Cadbury-Schweppes (Apple)? ;D Cheers!

$6/mo/user,that's a sweet deal for MSFT vs $280 one time purchase. MSFT gets rid of piracy problem. I don t see the average person buying into this. I could +may be wrong. Well I must be above "average" then, as I probably will subscribe to this on my new laptop. ;D I'm still using my old laptop, even though I bought a new one in December...simply because I've been too lazy to buy software and install it, then transfer everything over. Now I'll probably just buy Office 365 and transfer everything over directly from our office server. Cheers!

So you're telling me, for a small monthly fee, I can use less powerful, laggy applications over the internet where speed is limited by my capped internet connection, rather than a much more robust application on my less compromising hard-drive which is only limited by the speed of my quad core processor? Partly correct, but remember that hardware appliances like the iPad and Chrome laptops have no lag when booting the computer. Because the software is online, you can flip open your laptop and it fires within seconds. - No 45 second to 90 second start. - No limitations from your hard-drive speed. - No limitations of memory due to the processor firing up programs. Google introduced online docs many years ago. Does anyone actually use those products to any material extent? MSFT seems to be fighting for a piece of something that doesnt matter. True. But it will get better. I like gmail and if Outlook had the same synchronization and abilities, then I would go back to Outlook only. Google will improve the other apps as well. But now users have a choice...Google's lesser quality apps in the cloud, or Microsoft's dominant office software in the cloud. I think if they execute correctly, many will stick with Microsoft. Google has their work cut out for them, as does Microsoft...and let's not forget about Apple either. Cheers!

Simple machines doesn't offer any mobile skins for their software? This is the way several other message board companies handle this. They don't have one yet, but they are working on it. May just be worth it to wait. As I said, I'll keep working on this. Cheers!