No. of Recommendations: 17
As Jim says, at a price, everything is a buy.:-)
My saying is more that "there is a price for everything".
Not everything is a buy at/below that price...some things are uninvestable.
To rephrase the quote that Mr Buffett included in the recent annual letter:
Never deal with a rascal. Even the fact that you know in advance that he's a rascal and plan accordingly won't prevent him from cheating you.
I don't know much about Mr Biglari, but what little I've read does not immediately inspire confidence. Overpaying yourself is at least an above-board way to take advantage of minority shareholders; moving assets around between entities to enrich yourself, as he may have done, is another league. Pretty typical in France, but in the US you can do better.
Snip from some random blog from 2017
"Sardar Biglari’s total pay package as CEO of Biglari Holdings, the parent company of Steak ‘n Shake, is technically just $900,000. That’s relatively low. It’s also not his entire pay package. Biglari Holdings also paid $31.6 million in incentives to Biglari Capital, an investment fund in which Biglari is the sole owner. Biglari Capital makes investments for Biglari Holdings, which then pays Biglari Capital an incentive based on the value of those investments — similar to what a private-equity firm would earn from its investors.
...
In 2010, Biglari proposed a payment incentive that would pay him like a private-equity manager: an incentive equal to 25 percent of the increase in his company’s book value, over a 6 percent “hurdle.” So his investments would have to increase in value by more than 6 percent for him to earn an incentive.
Shareholders revolted. A cap was placed on his potential pay package. Then, in 2013, Biglari bought back Biglari Capital, for $1.7 million. Many of Biglari Holdings’ investments were then transferred to Biglari Capital. And Biglari Holdings agreed to pay Biglari Capital the incentive fee that shareholders rejected in 2010, but without any such cap. "
I have no idea what the entire story is, nor the degree to which the above is a factual summary.
Jim
