Transcript
A (0:01)
Cracker Barrel, an activist calls to remove the CEO from the board. But just who is the agitator? Is pricing relief on the way for your cup of morning brew? And my conversation today with Wall street tech bull Dan Ives. Is he a Silicon Valley evangelist or an objective Observer? For Friday, September 19th, it's Brew Markets Daily. And I'm Ann Berry. Coming up, my chat with Dan Ives. But first, Cracker Barrel has an activist investor. Many public companies do, but they're not usually another public company or the CEO of a rival business. So I wanted to take a minute to look at this one, who happens to be both. Sardar Biglery, CEO of Bigelowy holdings, is encouraging shareholders to vote against the re election of Cracker Barrel CEO to the company's board. Now, this move comes after Cracker Barrel's report this week that its customer traffic has has been down 8%, hit by recent rebranding drama. After changing its longtime logo, reversing that decision and then halting planned restaurant remodelings. Bigelry holdings holds 2.9% of Cracker Barrel stock and is itself a public company, trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticket BH and with a market cap of about $950 million. So what does it do? Well, it owns restaurant chain Western Sizzlin as well as Steak and Shake, of which Sardar is also CEO. His who holding company also owns insurance and oil and gas businesses. And then it owns public companies, including, as of December, a stake in Ferrari and of course, in Cracker Barrel. Now, the CEO has spent years agitating for change at Cracker Barrel and has tried seven times to get a seat on the board for himself. One of the more unusual activist profiles I've seen. So we're going to keep watching this one, if nothing just out of, for, just out of, out of curiosity. Counting down to my interview now with Dan Ives. But First Brew Markets Daily is sponsored by Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. Let's throw it over to our producer John, who's excited. It's the end of the week. I think we all are.
B (2:14)
Yes, that's very true. I love me some Fridays. And because what does Friday mean? Payday. And what does payday mean? 401k days, because one day when I'm retired, every day will be Friday.
A (2:25)
John definitely has that tgifi. We're all just catching up. Well, for a limited time, public users can earn an uncapped 1% match on all IRA transfers and rollovers, a 1% match. So get started. At public.com/brewmarkets that's public.com/brewmarkets paid for by Public Investing.
B (2:42)
Full disclosure and Podcast Description if there's.
A (2:45)
One Wall street analyst who's found fans among both institutional and retail investors, it's Dan Ives, the global head of technology research at wedbush securities. Dan's Analys analysis covers some of the hottest publicly traded companies in the world, from Nvidia to Tesla businesses we love talking about on this show. And he doesn't just write recommendations on where investors should put their money, he actually puts capital to work directly too. In June of this year, Dan launched the Dan Ives Wedbush AI Revolution ETF ticker I V E s if ever there was a flex with a personalized set of plates, this would be it. Your own ticker. Well, the ETF holds the stock of 30 public companies identified using Dan's research that he believes are powering, quote, the real world deployment of artificial intelligence. And as if he wasn't busy enough, earlier this month Dan became the chair of eight Co holdings, which owns a portfolio of companies in the E commerce and mobile phone sectors. Now EightCo is public and it just rebranded its ticker to Orbs Orbs after closing a $270 million private placement with the cash used to buy Worldcoin, the cryptocurrency co founded by Sam Altman and that has iris scanning as part of its verification system. Famed as a tech bull, Dan is a very influential voice across pretty much every media platform and so I'm delighted to welcome him onto the show today. There is a question we asked him. We were a little provocative. Is he an objective analyst or now that he's actually on the boards of operating businesses, is he a Silicon Valley evangelist on its payroll? Listen to our conversation and you decide. I want to start with a couple of rapid fire questions on some of the top names that are in your world, broadly defined. Number one, Adobe, it's in your etf, so it looks as though you believe it's an AI revolutionary. It's also one that other analysts believe is behind the curve on AI when you look at Figma or Midjourney or OpenAI's expansion into images. So why do you think it's enough of a winner to put it in your etf?
