BH - Biglari Holdings

[NBL0303]

a waste of a terrific brand and restaurant.  Cheers!

 

You may be one of the only people who think that it is a terrific restaurant. But glad you enjoy it. Speaking of Lampert, I've heard it said that Steak n Shake is the Sears of restaurant chains.

[Parsad]

a waste of a terrific brand and restaurant.  Cheers!

 

You may be one of the only people who think that it is a terrific restaurant. But glad you enjoy it. Speaking of Lampert, I've heard it said that Steak n Shake is the Sears of restaurant chains.

 

NBL, do you know much about the restaurant and its history? 

 

After the turnaround by Sardar and his team, which was one of the best turnarounds I've ever seen or read about, the business was a cash cow...making roughly $30-35M net profit each year, with cash flows over $50M on just under $300M of equity.  The company had essentially no debt, was sitting on well over $50M in cash and owned most of its own real estate.  It also had a very strong, loyal following not unlike In & Out or Chik-Fil-A by many mid-westerners who grew up on the brand.  The thin Steak'n Shake patties seared on the grill are actually more flavourful than In & Out burgers.

 

At that time back around 2009/2010, Steak'n Shake was as far a cry as you could get from Sears!  It was a fantastic restaurant chain that was in excellent shape, generating a ton of cash, with no debt and was growing sales per store.  And it was shortly after that when Sardar took this business and essentially leveraged the hell out of it, alienated franchisees, shareholders, partners and killed off the steady growth it was enjoying.  The demise has been as swift as the amazing turnaround originally was!  For those of us that had invested in the company and watched it grow...it's very sad indeed!  Cheers! 

[NBL0303]

a waste of a terrific brand and restaurant.  Cheers!

 

You may be one of the only people who think that it is a terrific restaurant. But glad you enjoy it. Speaking of Lampert, I've heard it said that Steak n Shake is the Sears of restaurant chains.

 

NBL, do you know much about the restaurant and its history? 

 

After the turnaround by Sardar and his team, which was one of the best turnarounds I've ever seen or read about, the business was a cash cow...making roughly $30-35M net profit each year, with cash flows over $50M on just under $300M of equity.  The company had essentially no debt, was sitting on well over $50M in cash and owned most of its own real estate.  It also had a very strong, loyal following not unlike In & Out or Chik-Fil-A by many mid-westerners who grew up on the brand.  The thin Steak'n Shake patties seared on the grill are actually more flavourful than In & Out burgers.

 

At that time back around 2009/2010, Steak'n Shake was as far a cry as you could get from Sears!  It was a fantastic restaurant chain that was in excellent shape, generating a ton of cash, with no debt and was growing sales per store.  And it was shortly after that when Sardar took this business and essentially leveraged the hell out of it, alienated franchisees, shareholders, partners and killed off the steady growth it was enjoying.  The demise has been as swift as the amazing turnaround originally was!  For those of us that had invested in the company and watched it grow...it's very sad indeed!  Cheers!

 

Admittedly I don't know much about that (or much else really). But I do recall that the chain has almost gone under four separate times. Didn't Ed Kelley have to save the firm very similar to how Sardar did? And many people, I believe on this board, suggested that the main component of Sardar's "incredible" turnaround was the fact that he had simply cut prices dramatically, at the dawn of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, which was bound to be a winning strategy both in that economic climate but also because at that time most QSR burger chains were figuring out how to charge more and there was a significant competitive spot for cheaper QSR fare. Also, the constrained labor market made the economics of Steak n Shake more attractive then as compared with now. But once (1) the economy began picking up steam in earnest and (2) when other QSR burger chains had figured out that value offerings were underserved and a good strategic option, multiple burger chains introduced new lower-end offerings - and ever since those two things happened Steak n Shake has been losing customers.

 

Additionally, many people on this forum suggested (or outright declared) that Sardar was robbing the future of Steak n Shake for short-term cash flows. Basically, (I'm not sure if this is true, but people on this board argued that it is), that Sardar zero-ed out CapEx, stopped updating, modernizing and improving stores even though its competitors were doing significant updates - and that this would catch up with Steak n Shake. Again, maybe this is wrong, but many people on this forum argued that Steak n Shake's cash flows weren't nearly as significant as they looked at that time. And this is not a retrospective analysis, this is what people thought in real-time. So of course after years without basic CapEx on the unit level - and when they finally tried to do cheap refreshes at $25k per store in 2014-2015, many argued those refreshes were not effective at all - so the years of under expenditures made Steak n Shake's decline inevitable - and that what looked like a cash cow machine was just a cigar butt - and maybe Sardar was smart for pulling cash out and not spending CapEx or maybe he was dumb - but in any event the brand was not a enduring cash cow, but a cigar butt.

 

This makes Sardar's Steak n Shake turnaround look less like an actual turnaround and more like a temporary, Recession-driven reprieve from the executioner's block. The brand has arguably been trending towards extinction for a long-time. What do you call a brand that keeps ending up on the brink of bankruptcy and restaurant irrelevancy? Resilient? Doomed? I'm honestly not sure - but its history to me suggests it was far from clear that it was a strong, healthy, enduring brand.

 

Also, I believe they never owned more the real estate for more than 180 or so out of what were its formerly 430-plus stores. I believe Sardar sold one or two dozen pieces of Steak n Shake's real estate in 2008 when he first took over to survive (including some sale and leasebacks) and now they own the real estate for more like 150 units.

 

Also, I too think it is sad when a business goes under in the sense that when any doomed chain goes under it is unfortunate for the employees and vendors who are dependent on the company in the short-run for income - that is always a really difficult situation for any person who loses their job and source of income. Other than that, I don't know what is sad about a chain that keeps ending up on the verge of bankruptcy finally going over the cliff. It is sad in the sense of the human costs as with any business failing - but I don't know if there is some special sadness to Sears or Steak n Shake going down when they were on that path for a very long time and finally succumb.

[InelegantInvestor]

But what about the savings from removing cherries? Or the magical milkshake machines? How about when they saved money by reducing the number of colors on the cups?

Surely the licensing deal and hanging Sardar's picture in every store helped?

 

SnS was Sardar's booster rocket to captive capital. He used it to move the capital out of SnS and into his control. He has squeezed most of the juice out of this lemon, and he has done with it. Most of the early turnaround was the result of the operational efforts of Sardar's long departed partners in the initial takeover.

 

Remember when Sardar extricated old management's salaries and said he wouldn't pay himself?

 

The jokes just write themselves.

[NBL0303]

 

The jokes just write themselves.

 

What are they? Would love to hear some good Biglari humor

[sarganaga]

But what about the savings from removing cherries? Or the magical milkshake machines? How about when they saved money by reducing the number of colors on the cups?

Surely the licensing deal and hanging Sardar's picture in every store helped?

 

SnS was Sardar's booster rocket to captive capital. He used it to move the capital out of SnS and into his control. He has squeezed most of the juice out of this lemon, and he has done with it. Most of the early turnaround was the result of the operational efforts of Sardar's long departed partners in the initial takeover.

 

Remember when Sardar extricated old management's salaries and said he wouldn't pay himself?

 

The jokes just write themselves.

 

Maybe if the Sardar pictures had been bigger...

[Parsad]

But what about the savings from removing cherries? Or the magical milkshake machines? How about when they saved money by reducing the number of colors on the cups?

Surely the licensing deal and hanging Sardar's picture in every store helped?

 

SnS was Sardar's booster rocket to captive capital. He used it to move the capital out of SnS and into his control. He has squeezed most of the juice out of this lemon, and he has done with it. Most of the early turnaround was the result of the operational efforts of Sardar's long departed partners in the initial takeover.

 

Remember when Sardar extricated old management's salaries and said he wouldn't pay himself?

 

The jokes just write themselves.

 

If you want to call a spade a spade, then let's not minimize the turnaround that took place at that time.  You joke about cost saving efforts in the early days, but those were all necessary and they were far more expansive than the jokes bandied about.  I was there in the midst of all of it and watched Sardar, Jon and Andrew turn it around.  Yeah, Sardar's ego took over eventually, and frankly Jon and I were about the only ones that stood up to him at the time...so joke all you want. 

 

The weekend he announced the name change and compensation change, I sat in the Omaha Marriott bar on Sunday night telling him and Phil how it was a horrible idea...being rebuffed by Phil...Sardar was surprisingly composed and cordial.  I've never talked about this to anyone over the years other than Jon and a couple of other people.  So if you have no idea exactly what occurred during the turnaround, maybe educate yourself more about it.  After that meeting the shareholders of SNS went and voted for the proposal...of the 5% that voted against it...well you can guess who that included.  We sold all of our stock after that Omaha weekend, before the vote...I knew things were changing for the worse going forward.

 

For those of us who took the ride from the early days of Western Sizzlin all the way to the time when the name changed, we made a ton of money on that investment...arguably the best I ever made.  Anyone who remained a shareholder has lost money since!  And yeah, it all came down to Sardar and his ego...but again, call a spade a spade...the turnaround at SNS, over the time frame he did it, in the midst of the financial crisis...extraordinary!  Cheers!

[NBL0303]

 

If you want to call a spade a spade, then let's not minimize the turnaround that took place at that time.  You joke about cost saving efforts in the early days, but those were all necessary and they were far more expansive than the jokes bandied about.  I was there in the midst of all of it and watched Sardar, Jon and Andrew turn it around.  Yeah, Sardar's ego took over eventually, and frankly Jon and I were about the only ones that stood up to him at the time...so joke all you want. 

 

The weekend he announced the name change and compensation change, I sat in the Omaha Marriott bar on Sunday night telling him and Phil how it was a horrible idea...being rebuffed by Phil...Sardar was surprisingly composed and cordial.  I've never talked about this to anyone over the years other than Jon and a couple of other people.  So if you have no idea exactly what occurred during the turnaround, maybe educate yourself more about it.  After that meeting the shareholders of SNS went and voted for the proposal...of the 5% that voted against it...well you can guess who that included.  We sold all of our stock after that Omaha weekend, before the vote...I knew things were changing for the worse going forward.

 

For those of us who took the ride from the early days of Western Sizzlin all the way to the time when the name changed, we made a ton of money on that investment...arguably the best I ever made.  Anyone who remained a shareholder has lost money since!  And yeah, it all came down to Sardar and his ego...but again, call a spade a spade...the turnaround at SNS, over the time frame he did it, in the midst of the financial crisis...extraordinary!  Cheers!

 

It was a turnaround in some sense. But again it was like the third massive "turnaround" in less than 30 years. Ed Kelley's turnaround was even more dramatic in some senses. And, again, with the benefit of hindsight, it makes the "turnaround" look more like a temporary reprieve from the executioner's block.

 

That is not to diminish that he did save the brand from dying in 2008 - and that enabled him to take tons of cash out of it - which funded the $241 million Cracker Barrel stock purchase - which has grown to over $1 billion (including the dividends they've received). So staving off Steak n Shake's death for those years obviously did do a lot for him - but I think it was a misreading to say that it was turned around permanently or that it was turned around into a cash cow - rather than an operating cigar butt.

 

The reason its worth discussing though is because it was just assumed by Sardar and seemingly by many others, here and elsewhere, at that time, that after the "turnaround" the brand was now secure - it would be a cash cow. When, in my view, that was a fundamental misreading of the situation - albeit an understandable one. The brand wasn't permanently turned around by was riding a nice way that would eventually crest and break and die. Maybe Sardar understood this, actually, and perhaps that is why he took on tons of non-recourse debt, zero-ed out capex - and drained every dollar he could from Steak n Shake while it was still cash flowing. Of course, some will say - it wasn't destined to sink back into oblivion - Sardar caused that with the zero-ed out CapEx, poor management, etc. I don't know for certain, perhaps no one does, but I would say that fact that the brand has continually ended up in the waiting room for the graveyard and has continually needed these dramatic, company-saving turnarounds, at least suggests that the calculus was right - in the sense that it wasn't a turnaround but rather a temporary reprieve and as such the best thing he could do was drain every dollar out of it while he could, while trying to start a franchise program that could still grow the brand without consuming capital. (The execution of their franchising wasn't effective, however, but the idea was sound.)

 

On a different note, the creditors are so worried about this, and I can understand that in some sense, Steak n Shake is going under - but the creditors have first claim to 150 or so parcels of SNS real estate that I think far more than covers the $180 million or so princ. Additionally, the brand will probably be worth something to someone for all of the college locations they know have - Aramark and other concessionaires have said they are a great fit on college campuses - and they are opening 20 or so franchised university Steak n Shakes annually - and their have opened dozens of Steak n Shakes in France in just a couple of years and they are doing well there - so I would think that there may be some residual value of they sell the brand out of bankruptcy - or just continue to operate it after bankruptcy (even if they don't file - functional bankruptcy).

[InelegantInvestor]

But what about the savings from removing cherries? Or the magical milkshake machines? How about when they saved money by reducing the number of colors on the cups?

Surely the licensing deal and hanging Sardar's picture in every store helped?

 

SnS was Sardar's booster rocket to captive capital. He used it to move the capital out of SnS and into his control. He has squeezed most of the juice out of this lemon, and he has done with it. Most of the early turnaround was the result of the operational efforts of Sardar's long departed partners in the initial takeover.

 

Remember when Sardar extricated old management's salaries and said he wouldn't pay himself?

 

The jokes just write themselves.

 

If you want to call a spade a spade, then let's not minimize the turnaround that took place at that time.  You joke about cost saving efforts in the early days, but those were all necessary and they were far more expansive than the jokes bandied about.  I was there in the midst of all of it and watched Sardar, Jon and Andrew turn it around.  Yeah, Sardar's ego took over eventually, and frankly Jon and I were about the only ones that stood up to him at the time...so joke all you want. 

 

The weekend he announced the name change and compensation change, I sat in the Omaha Marriott bar on Sunday night telling him and Phil how it was a horrible idea...being rebuffed by Phil...Sardar was surprisingly composed and cordial.  I've never talked about this to anyone over the years other than Jon and a couple of other people.  So if you have no idea exactly what occurred during the turnaround, maybe educate yourself more about it.  After that meeting the shareholders of SNS went and voted for the proposal...of the 5% that voted against it...well you can guess who that included.  We sold all of our stock after that Omaha weekend, before the vote...I knew things were changing for the worse going forward.

 

For those of us who took the ride from the early days of Western Sizzlin all the way to the time when the name changed, we made a ton of money on that investment...arguably the best I ever made.  Anyone who remained a shareholder has lost money since!  And yeah, it all came down to Sardar and his ego...but again, call a spade a spade...the turnaround at SNS, over the time frame he did it, in the midst of the financial crisis...extraordinary!  Cheers!

To be clear, and you would know better, I was suggesting that the turnaround was Jon and Andrew, not Sardar. They were the operational guys. Without them, he hasn't demonstrated he could turn a merry-go-round.

All of the things I listed, which he is suggested post-those guys have fallen flat. He is a financial engineer. He is not an operator.

[5xEBITDA]

I would be amazed if the real estate of SNS covers the par value of the debt.

[peridotcapital]

I would be amazed if the real estate of SNS covers the par value of the debt.

 

I would agree with that. To cover it fully it would be something like $300/sf for the owned real estate. I looked at a sliver of the Missouri locations a while back since I was familiar with them (lived in StL for undergrad and the 6 years after) and the locations were not exactly super valuable. Came up with around $200/sf and have to assume that is not too far off from the system-wide average given the chain is focused in the low-cost-of-living midwest. Unless they own a lot of Florida locations in upscale neighborhoods, $300/sf seems like a stretch.

 

Of course, if they include all the equipment inside, and the milkshake machine upgrade is completed, those things might make up the difference. :)

[peridotcapital]

 

You may be correct. I haven't personally looked into this, but I know someone who is a much more specific subject-matter expert on the real estate and they looked into this and thought the 153 units or whatever are pledged would indeed cover the $180 million or whatever it is. Again, not personally an expert in this, but the person who is looked at a number of transactions for Steak n Shake properties over the last 10 years - some Steak n Shake properties have been bought and sold - and though they obviously aren't exact analogs to the pledged properties - the real estate researcher still thought that they would get to that amount or close to it.

 

Here is the exact math:

 

$180,948,000 debt outstanding / 153 pledged properties = $1.182 million per property

 

So most of the Steak n Shake transactions for comparable properties have, according to this other person I spoke with, been for that amount or more. Apparently, a Steak n Shake property was just sold for over $2 million recently. Again, that may not be representative - but a this person thought that property was no better than many of the pledged properties. Also, the lenders appraised those properties at a much higher valuation than $1.182 million per unit when they initially underwrote the loan - but of course, they could be wrong, and they are worried about it now - so that may imply that they do feel that the real estate won't cover the princ.

 

It's interesting, this matter, and the exact answer this question obviously matters to the creditors who will be fighting over the corpse but it doesn't really matter to the Biglari enterprise very much.

 

No one I know thinks that Biglari will get any value out of Steak n Shake at this point - and whether all of the real estate is worth $150 million or $180 million doesn't affect the value of the Biglari enterprise very much. Those are actually small amounts compared to whether Biglari sells the rest of the Cracker Barrel stake at $155 per share, $170 per share or $185 per share. Which from the low-end of that to the high-end of that range is approaching a $100 million - or whether he doesn't sell the second half of the Cracker Barrel stake and it loses a significant portion of its value.  The sale of the first half (or slightly less than half, but let's call it half) of Biglari's Cracker Barrel stake totaled $387 million to date. That it was $387 million and not $350 million and not $450 million matters much more to the value of this enterprise - and the amount of dollars that are available for Sardar to mis-appropriate from "shareholders", than whether the 153 pieces of Steak n Shake real estate are worth $150 million or $180 million.

 

I think it could be relevant in certain instances. I could envision a situation where the creditors would not necessarily want to take over the assets and would be open to a refinancing instead. I have to wonder if there is any scenario where Sardar would actually agree to an out of court debt restructuring. If he thought he would have a good chance to make more, versus handing over the company, it could happen. Of course, a material rebound in the underlying business would probably be required for either side to consider it. While it may be the most likely scenario, I am not sure it is for certain that SNS is just going to be handed over to creditors in 2021 or whenever it is.

[Parsad]

But what about the savings from removing cherries? Or the magical milkshake machines? How about when they saved money by reducing the number of colors on the cups?

Surely the licensing deal and hanging Sardar's picture in every store helped?

 

SnS was Sardar's booster rocket to captive capital. He used it to move the capital out of SnS and into his control. He has squeezed most of the juice out of this lemon, and he has done with it. Most of the early turnaround was the result of the operational efforts of Sardar's long departed partners in the initial takeover.

 

Remember when Sardar extricated old management's salaries and said he wouldn't pay himself?

 

The jokes just write themselves.

 

If you want to call a spade a spade, then let's not minimize the turnaround that took place at that time.  You joke about cost saving efforts in the early days, but those were all necessary and they were far more expansive than the jokes bandied about.  I was there in the midst of all of it and watched Sardar, Jon and Andrew turn it around.  Yeah, Sardar's ego took over eventually, and frankly Jon and I were about the only ones that stood up to him at the time...so joke all you want. 

 

The weekend he announced the name change and compensation change, I sat in the Omaha Marriott bar on Sunday night telling him and Phil how it was a horrible idea...being rebuffed by Phil...Sardar was surprisingly composed and cordial.  I've never talked about this to anyone over the years other than Jon and a couple of other people.  So if you have no idea exactly what occurred during the turnaround, maybe educate yourself more about it.  After that meeting the shareholders of SNS went and voted for the proposal...of the 5% that voted against it...well you can guess who that included.  We sold all of our stock after that Omaha weekend, before the vote...I knew things were changing for the worse going forward.

 

For those of us who took the ride from the early days of Western Sizzlin all the way to the time when the name changed, we made a ton of money on that investment...arguably the best I ever made.  Anyone who remained a shareholder has lost money since!  And yeah, it all came down to Sardar and his ego...but again, call a spade a spade...the turnaround at SNS, over the time frame he did it, in the midst of the financial crisis...extraordinary!  Cheers!

To be clear, and you would know better, I was suggesting that the turnaround was Jon and Andrew, not Sardar. They were the operational guys. Without them, he hasn't demonstrated he could turn a merry-go-round.

All of the things I listed, which he is suggested post-those guys have fallen flat. He is a financial engineer. He is not an operator.

 

I agree with you on that.  Cheers!

[Parsad]

I would be amazed if the real estate of SNS covers the par value of the debt.

 

I would agree with that. To cover it fully it would be something like $300/sf for the owned real estate. I looked at a sliver of the Missouri locations a while back since I was familiar with them (lived in StL for undergrad and the 6 years after) and the locations were not exactly super valuable. Came up with around $200/sf and have to assume that is not too far off from the system-wide average given the chain is focused in the low-cost-of-living midwest. Unless they own a lot of Florida locations in upscale neighborhoods, $300/sf seems like a stretch.

 

Of course, if they include all the equipment inside, and the milkshake machine upgrade is completed, those things might make up the difference. :)

 

If you included all of the restaurants, equipment, above-par leases and land that they own directly...oh, yeah it would cover the loan.  That's why I'm surprised that he would even consider just letting the non-recourse loans lapse, because he would get a hell of a lot more by just selling the chain to someone.  The loans are $240M...SNS chain is worth nearly 1 times revenue or close to $800M!  Some stupid PE firm might pay more than that if you compare what other chains have fetched with none of the history and brand loyalty SNS has.  Cheers!

[Parsad]

I would be amazed if the real estate of SNS covers the par value of the debt.

 

I would agree with that. To cover it fully it would be something like $300/sf for the owned real estate. I looked at a sliver of the Missouri locations a while back since I was familiar with them (lived in StL for undergrad and the 6 years after) and the locations were not exactly super valuable. Came up with around $200/sf and have to assume that is not too far off from the system-wide average given the chain is focused in the low-cost-of-living midwest. Unless they own a lot of Florida locations in upscale neighborhoods, $300/sf seems like a stretch.

 

Of course, if they include all the equipment inside, and the milkshake machine upgrade is completed, those things might make up the difference. :)

 

If you included all of the restaurants, equipment, above-par leases and land that they own directly...oh, yeah it would cover the loan.  That's why I'm surprised that he would even consider just letting the non-recourse loans lapse, because he would get a hell of a lot more by just selling the chain to someone.  The loans are $240M...SNS chain is worth nearly 1 times revenue or close to $800M!  Some stupid PE firm might pay more than that if you compare what other chains have fetched with none of the history and brand loyalty SNS has.  Cheers!

 

Well that is very optimistic. One thing, the Steak n Shake loans have $180 million princ outstanding. At least according to notes from some attendees at this year's BH annual meeting, during which SB apparently talked about the SNS debt with some particularity.

 

Not really...In & Out does about $650M in revenue and I would say it is valued at two times revenue...someone would easily pay that.  In fact, they've turned down offers to sell probably higher than that valuation.  Shake Shack does about $550M in sales...it's market cap is over $2.8B!  Cheers!

[Txvestor]

I doubt any PE investor would bid. Its been a neglected brand for a long time and I don’t think they come back especially with the plethora of emerging eating concepts out there.

If Sardar concludes the same thing, considering the language he is reported to have used about the debt not being at the holdco. level, He may try to fleece it of any valuables, esp. for his personal rather than BH gain. Who knows if this milk shake machine is such a ploy. Bond holders should be very worried. They have every right to be with Sardar at the helm.

[peridotcapital]

Let's see if there is any PE interest in stealing RRGB away from Vintage Capital. They are struggling but not as badly as SNS and generate a ton of free cash flow.

[NBL0303]

To purveyors of red ink and others who have a general interest in seeing companies lose money, today's Biglari Holdings quarterly report should be interesting. As someone just pointed out to me, they have probably closed an additional 100 Steak n Shakes during the second quarter - and they probably had very significant operating losses this quarter, just like last one.

 

The SSS and Customer Traffic numbers should be particularly interesting - will be they be negative 8%, negative 9% or maybe they will surprise and only be negative 5% - but in any event - the brand is bleeding out and it is very likely that today's report will continue to show that.

[given2invest]

Looks like he SLASHED costs across board so loss went down big time, but don't be fooled, top line SSS decline is essentially the same as Q1.

[bargainman]

Does anyone remember offhand the dates when SNS became BH, and when BH did it's reverse split?

 

I finally sold out and need to figure out my cost basis since my broker didn't transfer it correctly...

[Txvestor]

 

And the SSS and Customer Traffic numbers exclude the closed stores, so that is the SSS and CT numbers only for the best performing stores and they are still that bad.

 

Ah yes but you won’t understand because you aren’t an entrepreneur.

 

What a phony and fraud and shame on the investors who willfully turned over control to him. 

[NBL0303]

Does anyone remember offhand the dates when SNS became BH, and when BH did it's reverse split?

 

I finally sold out and need to figure out my cost basis since my broker didn't transfer it correctly...

 

Wow - so you've been through a lot of corporate events during your shareholding.

[awindenberger]

Does anyone remember offhand the dates when SNS became BH, and when BH did it's reverse split?

 

I finally sold out and need to figure out my cost basis since my broker didn't transfer it correctly...

 

Wow - so you've been through a lot of corporate events during your shareholding.

 

Likely sometime in 2011. Look at their 2011 and 2012 10-K's and they should have something in there about it.

[gfp]

And in case you aren't aware, the old filings are under OBH, Inc (exactly the same name as Old Berkshire Hathaway filings from before the two class share structure...  He literally copied everything he could)

 

https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0000093859&owner=exclude&count=40&hidefilings=0

[Gregmal]

As if the current business ventures weren't one of the biggest wealth transfer pits with regards to management teams transferring shareholder resources to their pockets, dirtbag seems to have found the only area in the world with greater potential for such wealth transfers! Oil and Gas!