Inelegant Investor is a collection of real-world investing observations, focused on the edge cases that don’t show up in textbooks — restructurings, CVRs, spinoffs, and the strange outcomes that accumulate in actual portfolios. And whatever else interests me about investing. Investing isn't always pretty, it's usually quite inelegant.
Recent Series: The Portfolio Graveyard
The past few years, have shown, in incident after incident, that the SEC is overloaded, understaffed, and unable to effectively carry out its mission to police the securities markets. So Congress, that august body which cannot agree on anything, agreed to give the SEC an additional mandate unrelated to its core mission: to ensure that public companies properly… Read More »
I first became interested in Daily Journal Corporation(DJCO) while reading Janet Lowe’s excellent Chralie Munger biography, Damn Right. I have owned it in the past though not currently. It consists of a declining but still profitable niche newspaper publisher, and with Berkshire Hathaway’s recent acquisition of Wesco, is the only company managed solely by Charlie Munger. Beginning during… Read More »
Perrenial value trap Sears Holdings(SHLD) is the subject of an excellent article at Bloomberg Businessweek. After Eddie Lampert’s initial success buying Kmart bonds in bankruptcy, hoped were high that through its merger with Sears, he would be able to monetize undervalued real estate and invest the proceeds elsewhere. Aside from some muddling with credit default swaps several years… Read More »
We have a soft spot for Consolidated-Tomoka(CTO). Besides remaining a great value, it happens to be the first stock we wrote about here. So we were pleased to see a recent profile of new CEO, John Albright in the Daytona Beach News-Journal. We had previously not known much about Albright, who took over on August 1. It seems… Read More »
First Marblehead(FMD), which purchased Tuition Management Systems at the beginning of the year for $47.25 million, has sold a portfolio of 377 contracts to FACTS, a subsidiary of Nelnet(NNI). First Marblehead said it decided to sell the contracts relating to lower cost schools, many faith-based, which accounted for 33% of contracts, but only 18% of revenue, to focus… Read More »
I hate to pick on the work of an intern, but presumably the value add of a site like MarketWatch is that there is editorial staff. How then did a piece of under 100 words manage to make multiple errors, mislead and add nothing of value? Intern Sara Sjolin clearly began with the premise that Biglari Holdings(BH) move… Read More »
In an unexpected move, David Sokol, Warren Buffett’s presumed successor as Berkshire Hathaway(BRKB) CEO, has resigned from all of his positions at the company. Buffett made the announcement in a press release he identifies as “unusual”. Sokol, who apparently has attempted to resign before, resigned by letter two days ago, citing his desire to create “enduring equity value”… Read More »
Just weeks after joining St. Joe’s(JOE) Board, and days after proposing Charlie Crist as an additional Board Member, Fairholme’s Bruce Berkowitz, whose fund owns over 30% of the company has resigned, effective immediately. Charles Fernandez, also of Fairholme resigned as well. The company, which put itself up for sale last week, has been a topic of much discussion… Read More »
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it might just be Sardar Biglari playing dress up. In his continuing effort to pretend to be Warren Buffett, Biglari Holdings(BH) announced this morning that its Board Of Directors had approved a 1-15 reverse stock split. This follows a previous 1-20 reverse split, and will be followed… Read More »
As reported previously, Berkshire Hathaway(BRK-B,BRK-A) announced its intention on August 25, 2010 to propose to Wesco(WSC) that it purchase the 19.9% of Wesco it did not already own. This morning, at long last, the two companies have announced a definitive merger agreement. Wesco shareholders will be able to elect cash or stock at what seems like a negligible… Read More »