Some Weird Stocks
Afterword: State of the ‘Stack
Introduction
In some Companies I Like I wrote at length about why most people should invest entirely, or mostly, in passive index funds as well as some categories of companies I like for those who, like myself, insist on trying to pick stocks that will beat the market. Here are some “left over” stocks I came across in my research that didn’t make the cut for the initial article but which are interesting because of their general weirdness. As per usual nothing here is investment advice.
Central Banks
The Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, is an agency that is so-called “independent within the government.” This means it lives in an odd no-man’s-land that is part of the executive branch of the federal government but not under the direct authority of the President or any Cabinet secretary. Many other central banks across the world have their own form of being quasi-governmental but also quasi-independent.
But not all! It used to be common for central banks to be publicly traded companies owned by private shareholders and five still are, namely those of Japan, Switzerland, South Africa, Greece, and Belgium. By way of contrast the Bank of England was owned by its stockholders from its founding in 1694 until it was nationalized in 1946, but these five central banks still have shares that trade on their nations’ exchanges.
Central banks typical have large holdings of gold and bonds and they also have a monopoly on creating the legal tender for the nations they exist in. It therefore sounds like owning the Swiss National Bank, the Bank of Japan, the National Bank of Belgium, the Bank of Greece, and the South African Reserve Bank would be great investments.
In practice not so much. First of all, Greece and Belgium are part of the eurozone and so their central banks cannot create euros directly, although they are shareholders of the European Central Bank which can can. Second of all, the governments of the countries of each of these banks not only own large stakes themselves but also severely limit foreign ownership, cap dividends, and restrict shareholder control of management. In the event of a financial crisis private shareholders would also have no residual liquidation preference at all. In short, these are just historical curiosities that no retail investor should be dabbling in.
Mills Music Trust
Mills Music Trust (MMTRS) has a very simple business: own a catalogue of copyrighted songs, receive royalties for the songs from EMI Records, and pay out the royalties to shareholders after deducting some de minimis corporate expenses (the trust has no officers, directors, or employees).
Mills owns over 12,000 music titles but only a handful make up the bulk of the revenue. In 2025 the top two contributors by a wide margin were Sleigh Ride (Vocal) by Leroy Anderson and Mitchell Parish and Little Drummer Boy by Katherine K. Davis, Henry Onorati, and Harry Simeone. The former will enter the public domain in 2046, the latter in 2032. The next top ten contributors all have copyrights ending between this year and 2032 with several in 2027.
I will disclose that I own this stock and have received more back in dividends than my initial investment which I think will cause some tax weirdness if I ever sell it. Interestingly, 28.66% of MMTRS is owned by MPL Communications Ltd, the umbrella company housing the business interests of Paul McCartney.
Hedge Fund Managers
Hedge funds are in theory available only to accredited investors but there are some loopholes whereby retail hoi polloi can invest either in proxies for these funds or, better still, in the management companies collecting fees on the funds. There are of course very many publicly traded asset management firms including private equity titans like KKR, Apollo Management, and the Carlyle Group, but I will focus here on just a few “celebrity” hedge fund names.
Bill Ackman just did an IPO for a closed-end fund for US investors (PSUS) as well as for his asset management company Pershing Square (PS). He already had a closed-end fund that trades on the London Stock Exchange which US investors can still purchase, albeit with weird tax implications, over the counter under ticker PSHZF. And he is in the process of trying to make the real estate development company Howard Hughes Holdings (HHH) a permanent capital vehicle akin (in theory) to what Warren Buffett did with Berkshire Hathaway.
Next up are Daniel Loeb of Third Point and David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital. Each set up an insurance company— SiriusPoint (SPNT) and Greenlight Capital Re (GLRE) respectively—to give themselves more capital to invest. These aren’t pure plays on their investment abilities since they’re also subject to the soundness of the insurance underwriting, but after some yeas of lackluster performance both seem to be doing nicely recently.
Carl Icahn manages his money through Icahn Enterprises (IEP). This one seems like a real dud with a suspiciously too high and unsustainable dividend.
Finally I will mention two companies, FRMO Corp (FRMO) and Horizon Kinetics Holding Corp (HKHC) that aren’t really hedge funds or celebrity-related but are asset management firms tied to the recently deceased Murray Stahl. Stahl was a great writer and thinker and I owe one of my best performing investments, Texas Pacific Land Corp, to his always engaging research reports.
Closed-end funds
Since we’ve already touched on closed-end funds with Ackman let’s cover a few more. Central Securities Corp (CET), Adams Diversified Equity Fund (ADX), and Tri-Continental Corp (TY) all date back to the 1920s and generally hold blue chip stocks with impressive returns. SRH Total Return Fund (STEW) owns a massive position in Berkshire and trades at a discount to NAV. The fund’s founder Stewart Horejsi started buying Berkshire stock in the 1980s and I believe never sold a share. Finally there’s Special Opportunities Fund (SPE) which is a closed-end fund that owns stakes in all of the aforementioned closed-end funds and engages in many activist campaigns and weird SPAC arbitrage strategies.
Miscellaneous
Pinelawn Cemetery (PLWN) owns eight burial grounds spread over 2,300 acres on Long Island which were financed by the sale of “land shares” in the early twentieth century. Fifty percent of the proceeds from sales of burial plots is paid as dividends on the shares which used to trade on the pink sheets, but the company stopped publishing financials and they are available now only on the OTC expert market. The entity is also controlled by the Locke family which seems to have engaged (allegedly) in some epic corruption during the pandemic according to this interesting article.
Keweenaw Land Association (KEWL) dates back to 1865 when it received a federal land grant of over 400,00 acres in Michigan and Wisconsin. It exited its timber business a few years ago but still retains valuable mineral rights and receives royalties mostly from copper and iron miners. As of 2025 there were two employees.
Pardee Resources Company (PDER) also dates back to the nineteenth century. It was founded by Ariovistus Pardee, an engineer who worked on the Delaware and Raritan Canal and who got into the coal business and land speculation during the pre Civil War railroad boom. Today the firm owns timberland, metallurgical coal reserves, and natural gas reserves across 15 states as well as some agriculture and solar power interests.
Seaboard Corp (SEB) dates to 1918 and is engaged in pork production, grain and sugar processing, international shipping, and electrical power generation. It also owns a 50% stake in the Butterball turkey company. A single share can be yours for about $5,500.
Groupe Bruxelles Lambert (GBLBY) is a weird Belgian conglomerate with very many investments including stakes in Pernod Ricard and adidas.
Prosus (PROSY) was spun off from South Africa telecom Naspers and has stakes in many developing world digital businesses as well as about 20% of Tencent.
Afterword
That’s enough weird stocks for one day. Most of this stuff is junk but I always like to poke around and see if people are throwing away anything valuable.
Moving on, May 2 marked my one year anniversary on Substack. As I joked in the initial post, I began writing this newsletter to procrastinate from writing my book. I further elaborated in a post last September that writing and promoting the newsletter was practice for writing and promoting said book. The book, incidentally, will be a popular history on a topic in the Italian Baroque which I will not divulge yet.
In any event, with the exception of some holidays I’ve cranked out a post every week for a year and am happy with the results. After writing essentially nothing since dropping out of my PhD program at the Warburg Institute in 2003 I feel like I’ve regained the abilities I had way back then and can finally start the book.
I won’t stop writing this newsletter, but the frequency is going down. Instead of a weekly post there will now be one or two a month.
As always, thank you for reading.