I posted a long Trade Note in the form of a Tuesday File piece earlier in the week, since the announcement about Boston Omaha’s (BOC) executive departure caused me to do a deep dive into the company and rethink my investment… I won’t repeat that entire piece here, but I generally think Boston Omaha is attractively valued following the upset, even though I’m frustrated with the golden parachute given to Alex Rozek.

The only subsequent news on that front is that Boston Omaha clarified today that the separation is now final, I guess Alex Rozek had the right to change his mind for a week about the deal, and he has not… and we also got confirmation that as part of the wind-down of Boston Omaha Asset Management, Brendan Keating is leaving his position at that division. Fully expected, since the division doesn’t exist any more. He remains on the Board of Directors, where he’s been since the IPO, and he’s going to also serve as an outside consultant running the wind-down of the assets, but they say that since Keating was the only real employee at BOAM, this will save Boston Omaha money in getting rid of the three-way partnership that was at the head of their scuttled asset management business (BOC Co-CEO’s Rozek and Peterson joined Keating as the managers of BOAM, and owned the Class C shares of that separate business, which was one of the “executive enrichment” programs I wasn’t all that happy about from last year… but now those Class C shares have been torn up, the few assets BOAM bought (mostly some small real estate projects) are just owned by Boston Omaha, and Brendan Keating’s business will take charge of selling them off.

That really just clarifies the “clean slate” we’re starting with now, under full control of CEO Adam Peterson… but more detail will come in the next ~6 months that will either encourage or discourage us, so I’m keeping an open mind as we wait for the 2023 Annual Letter, and see how he answers investor questions at the Annual Meeting (probably in September, though not yet scheduled). As noted on Tuesday, I did pull some cash out and replace my equity position with an in-the-money call option position while we wait to see how things go over the next six months. I’m optimistic, and like the valuation here, but ...