Biglari Holdings’ stock has soared over the past year, and so the owner of Steak n Shake is looking to take advantage of it.
The owner of the fast-food chain Steak n Shake, which is an investor in a broad range of companies, has filed to sell 11.5 million shares of the company, including 10 million Class B shares, 500,000 Class A shares and 1 million preferred shares.
Biglari Holdings said in an SEC filing that it plans to use the funds “to create a strategic reserve to support the company’s business and investment activities.”
The filing suggests the reserve would support the company’s various businesses and give it funds to make acquisitions.
“We believe the corporation has inherent advantages from its layers of liquidity and the diversity of its cash streams from uncorrelated operations,” the filing says. “We further believe in the corporation’s ability to use its strategic reserves to build a stronger capital position at the holding company for acquisitions of businesses, for augmenting the capital of insurance subsidiaries, or for other general corporate purposes.”
It all comes as the company’s stock has taken off, thanks largely to strong performance at Steak n Shake. The San Antonio-based Biglari Holdings’ stock has more than doubled over the past year.
Biglari Holdings operates both Steak n Shake and the buffet chain Western Sizzlin. It also operates a pair of insurance companies, First Guard Insurance and Southern Pioneer Insurance, as well as a pair of petroleum companies Southern Oil and Abraxas Petroleum. The company owns Maxim Magazine, too.
Sardar Biglari, the company’s chairman who controls 75% of its stock, is also an activist investor on Cracker Barrel and Jack in the Box and is making a bid to buy the fast-food chain El Pollo Loco.
Profits in the first nine months of 2025 nearly doubled last year, to $12.4 million.
The company has received a huge boost with the performance of Steak n Shake, whose same-store sales soared 15.6% in the third quarter. The company has seen sales take off since it started marketing its fries cooked in beef tallow and began accepting bitcoin payments.
The company this year added $10 million worth of bitcoin to its balance sheet and said that any bitcoin sales go into its “strategic bitcoin reserve.”
Steak n Shake also said this week that it would give hourly employees at company restaurants a bitcoin bonus worth 21 cents for every hour worked.
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