SYTE - Enterprise Diversified

[andgroup]

Inelegant,

 

Not exactly. I do not think a minority or a corrupt majority who is raping the company and its shareholders should be allowed to determine the future of the company. Would be a better way to put it.

 

So this is where you and I just have to agree to disagree. You think the ends do not justify the means.

 

However, given the track record of value destruction and abuses of Mr Erhartic over the previous decade I simply disagree with you.

 

I think the actions taken by the board to break his strangle hold on the company were justified.

 

I don't think the issue was the minority shareholders. The issue was with the ousted, corrupted majority shareholder.

 

There is no doubt it was a hostile situation but I'm glad it turned out the way it did.

[andgroup]

Now I am out, I swore I wouldn't reply anymore in this thread, but you really should take a look at yourself. Calling someone a fool for disagreeing with your opinion isn't going to get you very far in life.

 

That is my opinion and I'm entitled to it.

 

Secondly, from a book value per share metric, I would argue that we haven't seen very much value creation at all.

 

Rome wasn't built in a day. It's coming.

[InelegantInvestor]

Posting, without comment, Mr. Kiel's letter to shareholders:

 

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1096934/000072174817000184/site8k032317ex99_1.htm

 

 

[ScottHall]

Posting, without comment, Mr. Kiel's letter to shareholders:

 

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1096934/000072174817000184/site8k032317ex99_1.htm

 

Alex Pape and Sean Sun are great guys; if they're involved I suspect this real estate investment will work out well. Very clear thinkers.

[Spekulatius]

Posting, without comment, Mr. Kiel's letter to shareholders:

 

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1096934/000072174817000184/site8k032317ex99_1.htm

 

800k in annual corporate expenses is about 8% of the asset base right now. That's a very high burden.

[NBL0303]

 

800k in annual corporate expenses is about 8% of the asset base right now. That's a very high burden.

 

This is in no way a defense of the management or any of their actions, but on this particular point - I wouldn't say that their expenses over the last year are "annual" in the sense of recurring or of having any amount of stability.  On this point alone, I think management has done reasonably well to get the company near-current with their SEC filings/auditors/bylaws/etc.  I'm actually amazed it was not more.  They must have negotiated well with the corporate lawyers and auditors - because generally having to restate financials, not only get audited by audit earlier audits, and clean up a company like this - would typically cost millions regardless of the asset size of the underlying company.

[stahleyp]

Packer is going to run a fund? Nice! Good for him. :)

[Phaceliacapital]

Well given the talks I had with him during FFH dinner events I think he'll do really well (also he has this little track record that says the same thing ...).

 

Congrats!

[Guest roark33]

I have a question from the peanut gallery. 

 

One thing I never understood about this situation is the corporate structure.  Why would you want to do all these investments in a corporate structure?  The tax disadvantages of these investments (assuming they work and the corporate parent will eventually pay taxes) seem so unfavorable that it makes no sense to do it in this form. 

 

Take the Alluvial Fund investmet, no one would set up a corporate structure to invest in a management company of an investment form. 

 

Maybe I am missing something here?

[stahleyp]

Does anyone know how Alluvial's performed since inception? last information I have is from April 2016.

[Guest roark33]

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b5aa12c5c889b46c0f8288f6d/files/Alluvial_Capital_Management_Q4_2016_Client_Letter_1.20.2017.pdf

 

 

[Radio Free Cash Flow]

Alluvial here. Happy to report that as of today, we have returned 17.1% annualized since 3/31/2014 compared to 6.2% for the Russell 2000 and 3.8% for the Russell MicroCap Index.

[stahleyp]

thanks guys. appreciate it!

[slkiel]

We have set the date and time of the annual shareholder meeting and invite everyone from the board to attend. We had a great group last year and had a lot of fun. The shareholder meeting is the primary way that we communicate with shareholders in order to remain focused on operations throughout the rest of the year. Because of that, we're happy to address all questions asked at the meeting. We are all looking forward to giving an update on the company. Keith and Dave will also be available to take questions in addition to the rest of the directors and subsidiary managers.

 

If you are not a shareholder, you are still welcome to attend. Just let us know in advance (info@sitestarcorp.com) so we can add your name to the list so the front desk doesn't turn you away. If you do own shares, please look out for the proxy statement next month.

 

Monday, May 22, 2017 at 10:00am ET

 

Offices of Alston & Bird

101 S Tryon St #4000

Charlotte, NC 28280

 

http://sitestarcorp.com/annual-meeting

[rkbabang]

We have set the date and time of the annual shareholder meeting and invite everyone from the board to attend. We had a great group last year and had a lot of fun. The shareholder meeting is the primary way that we communicate with shareholders in order to remain focused on operations throughout the rest of the year. Because of that, we're happy to address all questions asked at the meeting. We are all looking forward to giving an update on the company. Keith and Dave will also be available to take questions in addition to the rest of the directors and subsidiary managers.

 

If you are not a shareholder, you are still welcome to attend. Just let us know in advance (info@sitestarcorp.com) so we can add your name to the list so the front desk doesn't turn you away. If you do own shares, please look out for the proxy statement next month.

 

Monday, May 22, 2017 at 10:00am ET

 

Offices of Alston & Bird

101 S Tryon St #4000

Charlotte, NC 28280

 

http://sitestarcorp.com/annual-meeting

 

 

Will there be video, audio, or at least a transcript of the meeting (or at least the question and answer portion) made available afterwards for shareholders who are unable to attend?

 

 

[slkiel]

Will there be video, audio, or at least a transcript of the meeting (or at least the question and answer portion) made available afterwards for shareholders who are unable to attend?

 

Hi rkbabang. No audio/video but an attendee or two may type up some notes and share like last year.

 

On a somewhat-related note, there is real value to attending these things live due to the community aspect and to have real interaction with the company and its representatives. I may be a bit old school on the subject, but I think it would be better if there were more speed bumps in place to encourage investors to be more serious in their decisionmaking (such as if trade commissions were higher). Investors should consider attending shareholder meetings for all companies they own. Doing things like that helps to build commitment to the investment decision and, in Sitestar's case, encourages a shareholder base that is more long-term focused. Plus, we would like to meet our shareholders in person.   

[gg]

No offense, but that's a pretty unsatisfactory answer. If you do this for a living, by managing a fund, then you certainly may have an obligation to know what's happening at the meeting, may have the funding to do so, and certainly have the time to do so. Other passive investors, who might have 10,000 invested in this company can't justify the expense of 500-1000 of doing that trip, or may not have the time. With current technology, it's very cost efficient to webcast this sort of thing, and it should absolutely be offered by all companies whose shareholders can't all attend.

[slkiel]

No offense, but that's a pretty unsatisfactory answer. If you do this for a living, by managing a fund, then you certainly may have an obligation to know what's happening at the meeting, may have the funding to do so, and certainly have the time to do so. Other passive investors, who might have 10,000 invested in this company can't justify the expense of 500-1000 of doing that trip, or may not have the time. With current technology, it's very cost efficient to webcast this sort of thing, and it should absolutely be offered by all companies whose shareholders can't all attend.

 

gg- We are a small company and see value in meeting our partners in person.

[gg]

Of course that's the ideal, but you can be sure that not all of your partners can make it there.

[stahleyp]

Berkshire just started doing webcasts like a year ago. I don't think there was an official transcript or audio either. they have a few more dollars and still didn't have those things.

[ragnarisapirate]

I had started to type a response that had the jist of what Steve wrote (separately); he much more eloquently states things. :)

 

To the point of holding a small position in a company and still attending meetings: when I attended the WEST meetings, I didn't hold a single share. And at no point, have I run a fund- it was soley to meet new people, network, and learn. As it turns out, I met some pretty cool people- coincidentally, 2 of them, Steve and I are fortunate enough to serve on the board of SYTE with- Keith Smith (Packer) and Chris Payne. They had independently met Steve in person as well, and it made sense. A lot of other investors I know have met a great network from the annual meetings of these small companies and having an in person experience is a solid way of building a network and trust. All ships rise from this.

 

Even when going to the SNS meetings, I didn't hold much in terms of a dollar amount of stock- can't remember the total amount, but do remember literally putting the last $500 I had into it when SNS was trading at ~3.15/share- so the expense of attending the meetings was not insignificant. Connected with some good people there as well. The write-ups that I did on both those companies' meetings are a lot of what got there to be a small readership base for Ragnar Is A Pirate. Steve has said that my writing(s) on SYTE was what got him involved, and as such, probably started the series of events to that happened make the company a real and legitimate company, because of the actions he has taken in the past 15.5 months as CEO. Can you believe the transformation of the business!?

 

Even if you just walk away from an annual meeting (any of them, not even SYTE's) with a single stock idea that you didn't have before, from getting lunch with new people, it's prolly worth the money- not to mention a trip that you can probably figure out some way to write off. They are a very cheap call option. Time will tell, but you never know what you might happen to luck into.

 

EDIT: So for those of you who do come, please do a write up for those that can't make it. ;)

[rkbabang]

It was just a question I didn't mean to start a huge debate.  It costs almost nothing to put a video camera on a tripod and post it to YouTube, so I was wondering if you planned to do it.  I agree that ideally attending the meeting in person would be best. But I don't do this for a living and I'm not going to use my vacation time to go to annual meetings all over the country for the companies I own.  I've never even made it out to the one in Omaha. 

 

I do greatly appreciate those who take notes and share them here or on a blog.

[oddballstocks]

I've gone to a number of meetings in person.  Leading up to the events I have often second guessed "is it worth it?"

 

The answer is this.  There hasn't been a single annual meeting that I've attended that I've regretted attending.

 

As for the value of the information.  You can learn about 1/10th of a company from their SEC filings (this is generous), and somewhere between 3/10 and 1/4th from talking to people at the company.  My experience has been phone conversations are a lot less productive compared to an annual meeting.  With a phone call you're interrupting their day.  At the annual meeting they have carved out time to stand around and talk, exactly what you need.

 

There are usually a lot of employees at these things too.  For those of you into scuttlebutt this is a gold mine.  Where else can you go and just stand around drinking free crappy coffee, eating giant cookies and asking people "why do you manufacture the way you do? What other approaches have you explored? How do your competitors do it?" and have employees answer candidly and constructively.

 

There has been more than one occasion where my pre-conceived notion of a company from their financials was shattered with a short conversation with management.  Once they let me in on the secret I realized that it would be almost impossible to triangulate their business just from reports.

 

Oh and lastly the networking.  These things are great for networking.  I should state my biases here too.  I'm an extremely extroverted person, I love to talk and love meeting people.  You need to go up to people and start conversations for there to be value.  You can't stand around and wait for the party to happen to you, you need to make it happen.  But if you enjoy that stuff, and can get a conversation rolling then you'll do fine.

[LC]

I always find it funny when communications companies or integrated tech companies (think Cisco, oracle. Etc) have investor relations resources stuck in the 1980s

[Green King]

I have a question from the peanut gallery. 

 

One thing I never understood about this situation is the corporate structure.  Why would you want to do all these investments in a corporate structure?  The tax disadvantages of these investments (assuming they work and the corporate parent will eventually pay taxes) seem so unfavorable that it makes no sense to do it in this form. 

 

Take the Alluvial Fund investmet, no one would set up a corporate structure to invest in a management company of an investment form. 

 

Maybe I am missing something here?

 

Why make this so hard? This is a judgment call. Can you judge the company's future based on what has been done?