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
Unchastened by his unsuccessful proxy fight for a Board seat at Cracker Barrel(CBRL), Biglari Holdings(BH) Chairman and CEO Sardar Biglari has begun aggressively purchasing Cracker Barrel stock once again. Biglari had been held to 9.9% by a rights plan which was voted down by shareholders at the annual meeting in December. Free to acquire more Cracker Barrel stock,… Read More »
It’s been a brutal year for Sears Holdings(SHLD) and a brutal year for Eddie Lampert’s hedge fund ESL investments. ESL has recently handed over shares of AutoNation(AN) to investors, presumably to cover redemptions, but it looks like Mr. Lampert is not willing to part with shares of Sears. The WSJ reports, based on public filings, that Lampert purchased… Read More »
Eastman Kodak(EK) surged 35% today, building on yesterday’s gains. Investors were reacting positively to two pieces of news released by the company. On Tuesday morning the company announced it was restructuring from three reporting segments to two. Under the new structure, Kodak has reduced its number of segments from three to two – the Commercial Segment and the… Read More »
Sears Holdings(SHLD) can’t seem to catch a break. After weeks of falling, Sears stock rallied 8% today on no news. Shareholders should cut their rejoicing short after tonight’s report from Bloomberg that CIT(CIT) will no longer finance vendors for their sales to Sears. CIT would not confirm reports, but Sears spokeswoman Kimberly Freely confirmed the action in an… Read More »
Someone at TheStreet.com has been spending too much time watching Disney’s Angels In The Outfield. A brief item this morning stated Roy Disney, nephew of the late Walt Disney, would own the team as a private investment. The deal would not be affiliated with Walt Disney Co., which owned the Angels until 2003. The family has partnered with… Read More »
We’ve written extensively about the once-great Eastman Kodak’s(EK) slide to bankruptcy, but what might be the result of a Kodak bankruptcy? What might Kodak, and the city of Rochester look like in 5 years. Perhaps some answers can be found in the story of another prominent manufacturing company synonymous with an upstate New York city, Oneida, Ltd. Oneida… Read More »
Consolidated Tomoka(CTO) announced two recently completed transactions, the first under the leadership of CEO John Albright. The first transaction completed the repurchase of land that had been sold to Halifax Hospital Medical Center in 2003 but never developed. The company entered into an agreement with Halifax in 2009 to repurchase 33 acres over 4 years, but purchased the… Read More »
Kudos to the Wall Street Journal for scooping the story that Eastman Kodak(EK) is preparing a bankruptcy filing and may file by month’s end. The company is still exploring a patent sale to stave off bankruptcy, but it will be difficult to get an adequate price in this distressed situation. The company is said to be in negotiations… Read More »
Lately, it seems like this blog is becoming all Eastman Kodak(EK) all the time. Odd for a stock we don’t even own. Some Kodak bulls have commented that we interpret every piece of Kodak news negatively, so we felt we should comment that today’s announcement that Kodak has received a continued listing standards notice from the NYSE is… Read More »
A comment on a recent post asked whether we’d considered the value of Eastman Kodak’s(EK) real estate. It’s not something we’d given much thought to, but we’re friendly folk and so we proceeded to do a bit of digging. Our first stop was Kodak’s most recent 10K. While some companies provide detail on their real estate holdings, Kodak… Read More »