Parsad

I'm glad they are doing the merger. They've already got an operations guy at WEST they are happy with. They've got a CFO he's happy with, as I'm pretty sure Sardar likes Robyn...she was on the left of him, while Phil was on the right as they rang the NYSE bell. With SNS humming, Sardar's focus will go back to capital allocation. TLF and WEST investors understand that SNS is the main vehicle, so their interests will remain aligned as the largest shareholders. All is well in the world of Biglari! ;D I love it. I've kind of watched this guy grow as a man, ever since I met him in 2002. I would never have imagined that the young fellow I met then, would be doing the things he is doing now. He's far exceeded any expectations I ever had of him, and constantly surprises me on the upside. His intellect and abilities seem to increase every year, and his determination even more strengthened. Amazing! Cheers!

Buffett mentioned a little while ago, that the type of investment manager they like as a CIO would be someone like Peter Cundill. That's the only individual he's ever mentioned by name in the last couple of years, that would represent a realistic choice for them. Tim was Peter's star pupil, and ran Cundill with Peter for several years. He got the position by offering to work for Cundill for free. Tim would probably still be there if Cundill was never sold to MacKenzie. Now, I'm sure there are many people here who realistically could see someone like Prem Watsa in the CIO position. Not necessarily Prem, but someone very much like him. One of the highest regarded individuals by all the principals at Hamblin-Watsa has always been Francis Chou. Prem has nothing but the highest praise for Francis as an investment manager. Sam Mitchell, who has an incredible track record himself, is keenly aware of Francis' investment skills and acumen. So, I'm not going to argue about whether these two fall into the category of "the best" or "most stellar track records", since the two best investment managers (Buffett, Watsa) I use as mentors, have already touted the likes of Tim and Francis. There are some people who manage money with impeccable numbers that are higher than Tim or Francis' records. Where they are by far in the highest echelon of managers is when it comes to their ethics...something that a higher performance number will never indicate. I think for a CIO for Berkshire, this characteristic outweights the absolute performance numbers. Cheers!

Perhaps, this is why he delayed on the WEST shareholder's letter, n'est ce pas? I'm sure there will be some more clarity after today's AGM and when the letter comes out. Either way, we now know exactly where his time will be spent going forward. I think it's great news, with a slight but fair premium to WEST shareholders for their loyalty, and long-term SNS is the main holding company vehicle. Excellent! Cheers!

Jonathan Weil has a good article on new fair value footnotes by financial institutions. Not quite a bubble as he says, but certainly some banks could be required to increase capital. Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a04oVutXQybk

At today's prices...SNS. But that shouldn't dictate owning one or the other. - Remember, Sardar can just issue higher-valued WEST shares to make a great acquisition of an undervalued business...effectively giving up less intrinsic value per share than say issuing SNS shares for the same business. - WEST has a certain size advantage. There are plenty of microcaps that are already far too small for SNS, but would make a considerable investment for WEST. - WEST already has a diversified stream of businesses...Western Sizzlin restaurants, Western Sizzlin Real Estate, Mustang Capital, a portfolio of various marketable securities - And if you are worried about control issues, no one is going to wrestle control of WEST away from Sardar. It is still possible that someone could with SNS. I think you are better off owning SNS if liquidity is an issue, you are worried about volatility, or you want to own the better restaurant business. But otherwise WEST could very well prove to be the better investment, depending on what Sardar does with each company, and what opportunities are available to each. Cheers!

Considering FFHs current strong financial state shouldnt they be getting a bit more favourable (for FFH) coupon rate for their debt now? If they were refinancing in their current state three years ago...yes. But credit markets have tightened in the last year. So, even with a better balance sheet, Fairfax may not get a better rate as they are BBB-rated. Take a look at Berkshire Finance which issued some notes on July 7th. The 2018's are paying 5.4%, and that's an AAA-rated company. Don't let the rating agencies fool you. In these credit markets, Berkshire is still seen as AAA-rated company. Cheers!

It will continue. There are enough to carry the torch. It may not have quite the brilliance, but it will continue. Think about the NBA without Jordan. It's still pretty amazing with Kobe, LeBron, Howard, Paul & Nowitzki. It will be the same for value investing. People won't herd like they do in Omaha, but you will have maybe 10-15 other meetings that will get greater attendance because those managers will develop a stronger following. Some of the other stalwarts will start to get bigger...Leucadia, Fairfax, Sears, Markel, etc. And then some of the smaller ones will start to generate more interest...Biglari, Tilson, etc. The greatest player of them all may leave the playing field, but someone always comes along. No one ever thought there would be another Jack Nicholas, but then 25 years later you've got Tiger Woods. No one is truly ever bigger than the game itself. Cheers!

Incidentally, Tim's second quarter letter is out on his site: http://www.mcelvaine.com/annualreports.html He writes the best letters. They're really short, sweet and to the point...they're also damn funny! Cheers!

Hi Marlin, First time I was at a Yellow BRK'ers meeting was in 2001 at the invitation of my friend John Zemanovich...changed my life! Incidentally, that was where I first met Warren, Little Susie, Sherrie, Mohnish, Dr. Ajay Desai, Farmer Lyle, et al. I remember Warren talked for about 25 minutes or so that year. The following year I met Andy and Pat Kilpatrick. It was also the first time I saw a Netjets display at Eppley. I first met and spoke with Ajit Jain in 2004...when I also had a lovely long chat with See's Chairman Chuck Huggins. Then in 2005, I remember taking this young fellow around everywhere who had forgotten his credentials...his name was something like Shai Dardashti or something...maybe you've heard of him! ;D The last Yellow Brk'ers meeting I attended was the one where Sherrie handed over the reins to Shai, and then Mohnish spoke a bit about John Gartmann who passed away...I believe it was the 2006 meet. I haven't been back since starting the company and investment funds, but will be going next year. Really looking forward to it. Haven't seen some friends in a while...the excitement, the hoopla, listening to Buffett & Munger. The only thing I don't miss is the mad dash for seats at the Qwest Arena. See you then!

Article from the Globe & Mail. Cheers! http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/story/GAM.20090812.RBROOKFIELD12ART1938/GIStory/

I got it straight from the horse's mouth. He's ringing it tomorrow morning. And then closing with the Nasdaq. I've never seen it before either. Cheers!

For anyone attending the Western Sizzlin AGM in New York tomorrow, make sure you go to the trading floor to see Sardar ring the opening bell at the NYSE, and then after the AGM at the Nasdaq Marketsite, Sardar will be ringing the closing bell at the Nasdaq. Pretty wild! Cheers! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Western-Sizzlin-Corp-WEST-pz-1467851884.html?x=0&.v=1

Prem was comfortable in the past with $500 million at holdco to entertain opportunities and potentially help subs if they were in trouble. That is a number he mentioned at a past annual meeting relative to what he thought would cost a major earthquake in California. I don't see why we need $880 million today which is likely more $1 billion now. All the subs are over-capitalized, debt repayments are far out and well spreaded. I'm of the opinion that an umbrella won't do you much good during a flood. They've got enough leverage through float and asset to equity leverage, keeping a few hundred million more in the kitty would have a negligible effect on returns, but the credit rating agencies would view it as a positive. Cheers!

Personally, I would much prefer Prem keep at least as much cash as there is holdco debt...so currently they should keep about $850M+. That $500M number is too low for my tastes, and I think as long as they've got as much cash as debt, the rating agencies will be happy. As far as Odyssey is concerned, I don't think they should take it private. It's a reinsurance company and that means there will be periods of substantial catastrophe losses...think about an 8.0 earthquake in the middle of Los Angeles. You want Odyssey to be able to access the capital markets, either through debt or equity, if the need ever arises. Cheers!

Limabcmf, is that Emilio Estevez as your thumbnail picture? ;D Just noticed it. Cheers!

What's interesting is that unlike Berkshire, Munger put all of the money to work between December 31, 2008 and March 31, 2009. Couldn't have picked a more opportune time to pick and choose what he wanted, and things obviously had become cheap enough for him. Cheers!

They've done a God-awful job hiring and firing investment managers. Jonathan Wellum was also the wrong person to be running the investment side. Michael Lee-Chin lost interest some time ago in his company, and was more focused on his investments in Jamaica and philanthrophy. I'd like to know what Manulife paid, because they may have gotten ripped off based on where AIC is today! ;D Cheers!

Welcome Ok22! I'll leave it to others to elaborate further, but Sardar started his Lion Fund investment fund in 2000. He's beaten the S&P500 TR by over 10%+ annually since then. Unfortunately, access to the Lion Fund's website is restricted, but I've read all the annual reports and his record is very, very good. You can take a look at his asset allocation through Western Sizzlin's moves in public filings and decide for yourself if those positions will do well or poorly going forward. These are control positions mostly, so he generally was paying a premium to acquire blocks of shares. The benefit of control positions are that if you do take over, you can make sure capital is allocated to the highest return investments, and that's where he expects to make his profits long-term. Often they were underperforming operations and he was interested in improving their businesses. Cheers!

Yup, it's almost guaranteed to be pushing out the 2012's. They'll repay $30M from cash and operating profits, while pushing out $150M to 2019. Cheers!

I'll also be coming next year...I've been away for three years since we are so busy in Toronto usually a couple of weeks earlier. Next year we will do both. Cheers!

Wow, the corporate governance at AIG is about on par with what I've seen at Nortel. New CEO, Robert Benmosche, is starting his new job with a 2 week vacation in Croatia. Nice! Cheers! http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=azMHBdRR5d8Y

No, I like Steak'n Shake's business better and it will pretty much be the same thing, just with bigger cash flows. The other issue is liquidity for our partners. WEST is not very liquid, whereas SNS is. If we ever need to redeem capital for partner withdrawals, it would be much easier with SNS than WEST. But if you are a small investor who doesn't have to worry about liquidity, you'll do perfectly fine with WEST...albeit it isn't as cheap as SNS currently. Cheers!

Very impressive results for the restaurant business. Alot of operating expenses have decreased, as have D&A and legal costs. Whoever thought you could take the fringe Western Sizzlin buffet operations and turn them into a restaurant business that will generate $1.5-2M in operating profits and growing. Cheers!

Can they ship me one over to Vancouver? ;D I've really got a hankering for a Steakburger and shake. I hope they open one in Seattle in the next couple of years. Toronto would work as well. Hopefully they'll have one in Omaha by next year's AGM. Cheers!

I remember reading awhile back that due to the structure of some sale-leaseback transactions, some leases are actually expensed as interest. (That is why run rate interest ran last year at about 14 million when total debt was only 31 million) So paying off that full amount and using 8.4% cost of interest would only be about 2 million a year in saved costs... unless I'm not seeing something here. Sorry Nick, yes you are correct here, so that amount would drop. Still should save $2-3M a year though. Anyone care to explain why SNS is now down for the day after this earnings release? Who knows? Less than a month ago, Fairfax was below $250 US, and then over two weeks it popped to over $300 US. Today it's at $318. SNS is just below book value, and for a quality low-priced burger chain making decent profits, growing cash flows, with little to no debt and lots of cash on hand, they should trade between 1.3-1.8 times book. Cheers!