I've got a few odds and ends for this first Friday in November.
First, congratulations to the Atlanta Braves for winning their first World Series championship since 1995 on Tuesday night. I since have closed my position in Liberty Braves Group (BATRA) , which owns the team. Seems pretty fully valued to me at this point, and if I am leaving any meat on the bone that's OK, too. That's often par for the course for value investors, but it was a nice ride over the past year.
Meanwhile, in restaurant land, BurgerFi International (BFI) , which went public last year and has been one of the worst performers in the eatery space in 2021 (down almost 40% year to date), closed on an interesting acquisition Thursday. BurgerFi bought Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza & Wings, a chain with 61 locations in eight states, for $156.6 million. Its interesting timing, especially given rising input costs, and in this case, the fact that chicken wing prices are through the roof. This deal puts BFI in multi-brand territory, and the company expects the transaction to be accretive to earnings in 2022. BurgerFi currently garners no analyst coverage, but this should be interesting to watch.
Finally, gas station/convenience store REIT Getty Realty Corp. (GTY) , which has had a very interesting history, recently raised its quarterly dividend 5.1% to 41 cents. That equates to a healthy 5% yield. It also inches GTY closer to the 48-cent quarterly dividend it was paying prior to the trouble it ran into back in 2011. Getty Realty currently owns 1,021 properties in 36 states and Washington, D.D., 99.5% of which are occupied. The company continues to add to its portfolio; in the third quarter it added 25 properties, including 16 convenience stores in the Southeast, five car washes and one tire service center. I hope the dividend growth also will continue.
