Notes from the 2008 Western Sizzlin’ Annual Meeting
Last Wednesday, I had the pleasure of attending the 2008 Annual Meeting for my favorite young company, Western Sizzlin’ (WEST). As you all know pretty well by now, I’m an unabashed fan of what Sardar Biglari is doing with Western Sizzlin’, and a shareholder myself. The meeting took place is mid-town Manhattan at the St. Regis hotel during the afternoon.
The company is still small, and thus the meeting was relatively cozy, with not more than 50 people in attendance by my guess. Sardar was right there at the door greeting those of us who entered the ballroom where the meeting was to be held. With a couple of Coke glasses and microphones at the front, and seats for Mr. Biglari and his partner Mr. Cooley respectively, the meeting had the charm of a young Berkshire Hathaway.
As the meeting carried out, this notion was proved true. For more than 3 hours, Biglari and Cooley bantered with every shareholder willing to ask a question, with topics ranging from capital allocation to how he splits his time between entities. Interspersed were presentations and short speeches from various managers and directors of the company, as well as comments from a Steak N Shake (SNS) founder, Sue Aramian.
It was an enjoyable experience for myself, a friend I sat with, and I presume, the rest of the shareholder base. Biglari did not hold back in answering all of our queries.
Note pads and pencils were aplenty, and I was able to take down notes during the meeting. Luckily, I found a set of notes already done by a shareholder in attendance, posted on the MSN Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders group. Instead of starting from scratch, I took his notes and filled in the gaps where I saw them, from my own notes and memory. I hope you all enjoy the collected notes from the meeting, as I think they present a complete picture of what took place. If you have any questions, send me an e-mail. Enjoy!
Disclosure: I own shares in WEST and SNS
Great notes. I’m looking forward to hearing more about WEST and SNS.
Any pictures?
Unfortunately, no Alex. At least not from myself or anyone I knew I at the meeting. Maybe someone will come across the notes and have some pictures. Anyone reading this, contact me if you do!
My sincere thanks for the valuable hard work!
I will take a closer look and expect to comment once I can get a few minutes.
so if someone had some stuff to add from their notes, would that be posted?
The best course of action, ragnar, would be to contact me, and I’ll add the notes plus credit whomever has the additions. That way, we stay with one good set of notes, and everyone who contributed gets credit.
I apologize for my request (maybe OT), but I’m a big fan of Sardar Biglari and I’m searching someone who could help me finding Sardar Biglari letters to TLF partners.
I will be very grateful to anyone who can help me on that matter.
Thank you very much for your help and I’m sorry for taking away your precious time.
Akomrich
Akomrich,
Unlikely that you will be able to obtain Sardar’s letters. They are only allowed to be viewed by qualified investors with a net worth and/or minimum annual income levels. I’ve tried to obtain them myself, unsuccessfully. Best to get to work hitting that net worth minimum!
Jeff
[...] to monitor closely, but we do know this is Biglari’s current priority, as evidenced by his words at the WEST annual [...]
[...] decisions. However, this means no operator has been found, yet. At the Western Sizzlin’ annual meeting, Sardar spoke about the search. He alluded to the fact that SNS was very close to hiring a [...]
Although I broadly like what Sardar says, he really is nothing more than a Buffett jock sniffer. Read his partnership letters or his annual letter, it is an exact duplicate. There’s not a whole lot new to finance… but come on, you have to applaud originality. Look at what leucadia has done. They are a holding company and they dont duplicate the Buffett model in the least. In fact, they’re very different. Let me point to some of the similarities/jock sniffing. Sardar calls his meeting the Capitalist’s Ball vs Woodstock for Capitalists (incredibly brash for someone so young), he breaks his investments in his partnerships into the same buckets as buffet did with a similar fee structure. I mean come on.