given2invest Posted July 2, 2020 Share Posted July 2, 2020 I guess one of Sardar's relatives is a member of this forum. Or Sardar himself! Cause it's the only explanation for why anyone would defend this guy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awindenberger Posted July 3, 2020 Share Posted July 3, 2020 I guess one of Sardar's relatives is a member of this forum. Or Sardar himself! Cause it's the only explanation for why anyone would defend this guy. Much better to just take everything that is said by someone and twist it to make it sound terrible, isn't it. If I was actually Sardar I can't imagine why I would spend my time responding on this forum, LOL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballinvarosig Investors Posted July 3, 2020 Share Posted July 3, 2020 So lets unpack this: Sardar was asked a hypothetical question, and he answered it hypothetically, but concluded by noting that he likely wouldn't change it much were he to be starting from scratch. He also noted he had no plans to change anything now. The fact he even suggested a further change to the incentive plan is an insult given the way the share price has cratered and if history is anything to go by, it's the first salvo in softening up shareholders to the idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted July 3, 2020 Share Posted July 3, 2020 I have found that waiting for morally bankrupt people or managers void of ethics, to develop them, is a poor investment strategy. Even if there is tremendous margin of safety, more often then not, they'll find a way to put more of it in their own pockets than yours. In fact, you're lucky if you even get anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted July 4, 2020 Share Posted July 4, 2020 I have found that waiting for morally bankrupt people or managers void of ethics, to develop them, is a poor investment strategy. Even if there is tremendous margin of safety, more often then not, they'll find a way to put more of it in their own pockets than yours. In fact, you're lucky if you even get anything. I agree. Valuation is irrelevant, if an asset is controlled by a crook and there is no way to wrestle control away. It’s as simple as that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orchard Posted July 4, 2020 Share Posted July 4, 2020 I agree. Valuation is irrelevant, if an asset is controlled by a crook and there is no way to wrestle control away. It’s as simple as that. Would you invest in this if the market cap was $1? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hillfronter83 Posted July 4, 2020 Share Posted July 4, 2020 I agree. Valuation is irrelevant, if an asset is controlled by a crook and there is no way to wrestle control away. It’s as simple as that. Would you invest in this if the market cap was $1? A more realistic scenarios is if BH drops another 90% and it’s market cap is $20m. And let’s assume one’s net worth is $1m. Will you put half million in this stock? My answer is no. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cevian Posted July 4, 2020 Share Posted July 4, 2020 Eventually, there is a realistic chance he will take this private so I don't think anyone can trust getting in even at a low price since one can easily foresee him making a lowball offer. Biglari wins in every scenario and investors lose in most scenarios I can envision. The only thing that would prevent him from taking this private is his need for sycophants hanging on his every word. I've met the guy. A large part of his ego is the crowd he draws at the AGM. This is just a guess but, in his mind, I think he imagined he'd be filling a stadium full of groupies by now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OracleofCarolina Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 If SNS declares bankruptcy, can the bank take the farm too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuhndan Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 No, only the assets of Steak n Shake. Biglari talked about not fearing failure at the annual meeting. I think that’s what he was talking about. Take off the assets and liabilities of SNS leaves debt free company with meaning cash and securities and the remaining operating businesses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 https://www.mysanantonio.com/sa-inc/article/Has-San-Antonio-s-Sardar-Biglari-lost-his-touch-15393824.php Good article on the AGM! Slight mention of the farm near the end of the article. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 He has long talked about SNS being non recourse. The termite chews through the wood and then leaves the hollowed out mess for someone else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkbabang Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 https://www.mysanantonio.com/sa-inc/article/Has-San-Antonio-s-Sardar-Biglari-lost-his-touch-15393824.php Good article on the AGM! Slight mention of the farm near the end of the article. Cheers! Straight from the jockey's mouth. "But what do you do when the jockey is choking the horse?” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValueMaven Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 A black ferrari???? Are you kidding me? I've followed this from afar - but wow - he has really destroyed value over the years. Wouldnt touch this with a 100-foot pole. What a joke. BTW: I'm still amazed what he has built. Although now it is clear to me - he was completely lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwoCitiesCapital Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 A black ferrari???? Are you kidding me? I've followed this from afar - but wow - he has really destroyed value over the years. Wouldnt touch this with a 100-foot pole. What a joke. BTW: I'm still amazed what he has built. Although now it is clear to me - he was completely lucky. What a joke?!?! How tone-deaf can you be? A fairly good chronicle of the company and the conflicts though. I loved this part: No recent audited circulation numbers could be found, but it’s apparent readers — along with advertisers — have vanished. Only about 10 percent of the pages in the July/August edition had ads. That includes a house ad for Maxim and one for Steak n Shake, which seemed out of place in a publication chronicling luxury lifestyles. Leading voice of men's luxury lifestyle indeed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cevian Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 He's made me lose faith in the entire system. If it can happen here it can happen with any company. Slowly, and then rapidly, he took complete control of a company and made himself a multi-millionaire at the expense of shareholders without any real opposition. There is a clear case to be made of "unjust enrichment" here but who will make it? When you have thousands of individual shareholders, not one shareholder is willing or able to put up the funds to sue. I'm surprised the class action lawyers have not been sniffing around. There were a few class actions suits at some stage if I remember correctly but they were dropped for some reason. It has affected the way I invest and how much of the portfolio I allocate to public companies as opposed to businesses and real estate I control. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stahleyp Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 If he didn't start his small cap value hedge fund in 2000, he would probably be just some random guy. If he would have set it up like 10 years ago, he would (most likely) be sucking, no one would have thought he was a investment genius either. My favorite quote was his whole "who's laughing now?" haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 He's made me lose faith in the entire system. If it can happen here it can happen with any company. Slowly, and then rapidly, he took complete control of a company and made himself a multi-millionaire at the expense of shareholders without any real opposition. There is a clear case to be made of "unjust enrichment" here but who will make it? When you have thousands of individual shareholders, not one shareholder is willing or able to put up the funds to sue. I'm surprised the class action lawyers have not been sniffing around. There were a few class actions suits at some stage if I remember correctly but they were dropped for some reason. It has affected the way I invest and how much of the portfolio I allocate to public companies as opposed to businesses and real estate I control. +1. Ive had similar thoughts with various names over the years. People who look promising, only to slowly let the money and power get to them. You'd think the shareholder base is capable of standing up, but either through manipulating the voting structure, or simply gaming the proxy firms like ISS, who essentially determine how most of the institutional shareholder base will vote...well you get situations like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 A black ferrari???? Are you kidding me? I've followed this from afar - but wow - he has really destroyed value over the years. Wouldnt touch this with a 100-foot pole. What a joke. BTW: I'm still amazed what he has built. Although now it is clear to me - he was completely lucky. Even I can't take that away from Sardar...there was some luck, but he put in the work alongside others. The difference between being an operator and investment manager/activist is night and day...believe me I know and have learned! There are a couple hundred things happening that you are vulnerable to as an operator and decision making. As an investment manager/activist, that number drops to less than 25. Affinity for the Eurotrash lifestyle was something everyone knew back when it was just the Lion Fund alone, so no one can pretend that they didn't know he liked expensive things. For all intents and purposes, he's achieved what he was aiming to achieve...for the most part. Love and adoration like Buffett has escaped him, but hey, he's growing his own organic vegetables in the frickin' French Riviera, while eating a Steakburger, writing articles for Maxim magazine sitting on his yacht, before he rides his motorbike like George Clooney to Tuscany to his new Cracker Barrel Nouveau Bistro a la Biglari! Who's the f**king losers now...oh, is that my hand! Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValueMaven Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 A black ferrari???? Are you kidding me? I've followed this from afar - but wow - he has really destroyed value over the years. Wouldnt touch this with a 100-foot pole. What a joke. BTW: I'm still amazed what he has built. Although now it is clear to me - he was completely lucky. Even I can't take that away from Sardar...there was some luck, but he put in the work alongside others. The difference between being an operator and investment manager/activist is night and day...believe me I know and have learned! There are a couple hundred things happening that you are vulnerable to as an operator and decision making. As an investment manager/activist, that number drops to less than 25. Affinity for the Eurotrash lifestyle was something everyone knew back when it was just the Lion Fund alone, so no one can pretend that they didn't know he liked expensive things. For all intents and purposes, he's achieved what he was aiming to achieve...for the most part. Love and adoration like Buffett has escaped him, but hey, he's growing his own organic vegetables in the frickin' French Riviera, while eating a Steakburger, writing articles for Maxim magazine sitting on his yacht, before he rides his motorbike like George Clooney to Tuscany to his new Cracker Barrel Nouveau Bistro a la Biglari! Who's the f**king losers now...oh, is that my hand! Cheers! Extremely funny!! But with the stock in the mid-$60s, and BV (as per that article - I have no idea if this is true) pegged at $350+; at what point do we start taking a serious look at this. Frankly, until GAMCO, or someone really starts to suit this guy - I am sitting and watching from afar. I think you might need to get some type of revolt at the sub-companies before BH could be even broken up. Someone like Dan Loeb at Third Point could have a field day here and make decent money...There are no active fundamental managers in this - all Quant, and Passive. Even GAMCO hardly owns any stock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enoch01 Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 He will rip your face off if you become his minority business partner - count on it. He’s done this over and over again. He’s been enabled by people he’s duped. I enjoy watching the fight with Cracker Barrel from the sidelines - go Cracker Barrel! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 A black ferrari???? Are you kidding me? I've followed this from afar - but wow - he has really destroyed value over the years. Wouldnt touch this with a 100-foot pole. What a joke. BTW: I'm still amazed what he has built. Although now it is clear to me - he was completely lucky. Even I can't take that away from Sardar...there was some luck, but he put in the work alongside others. The difference between being an operator and investment manager/activist is night and day...believe me I know and have learned! There are a couple hundred things happening that you are vulnerable to as an operator and decision making. As an investment manager/activist, that number drops to less than 25. Affinity for the Eurotrash lifestyle was something everyone knew back when it was just the Lion Fund alone, so no one can pretend that they didn't know he liked expensive things. For all intents and purposes, he's achieved what he was aiming to achieve...for the most part. Love and adoration like Buffett has escaped him, but hey, he's growing his own organic vegetables in the frickin' French Riviera, while eating a Steakburger, writing articles for Maxim magazine sitting on his yacht, before he rides his motorbike like George Clooney to Tuscany to his new Cracker Barrel Nouveau Bistro a la Biglari! Who's the f**king losers now...oh, is that my hand! Cheers! Extremely funny!! But with the stock in the mid-$60s, and BV (as per that article - I have no idea if this is true) pegged at $350+; at what point do we start taking a serious look at this. Frankly, until GAMCO, or someone really starts to suit this guy - I am sitting and watching from afar. I think you might need to get some type of revolt at the sub-companies before BH could be even broken up. Someone like Dan Loeb at Third Point could have a field day here and make decent money...There are no active fundamental managers in this - all Quant, and Passive. Even GAMCO hardly owns any stock. I bought a bunch back in March in the low 50's. Even with a SNS bankruptcy, the stock is worth at least $200 just with the other investments. I'm a value investor...if it's cheap, I will buy...even if it's Sardar. I'm just not going to be a long-term partner. When it hits $125-150 or so, I'm out. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurgis Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 I bought a bunch back in March in the low 50's. Even with a SNS bankruptcy, the stock is worth at least $200 just with the other investments. I'm a value investor...if it's cheap, I will buy...even if it's Sardar. I'm just not going to be a long-term partner. When it hits $125-150 or so, I'm out. Cheers! And here we have the answer. Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 Once you determined that the CEO is a crook, nothing else matters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benhacker Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 Once you determined that the CEO is a crook, nothing else matters. +100 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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