I like what I’m doing. I’m going to keep doing it. So everything is fine. I’m not looking for liquidity. I don’t need liquidity, thank goodness, but there are people who own shares that are not active. They were just investors at the beginning and they got to a certain age and they may have some need of liquidity. So it’s not there to keep them locked up. So there are two options. Option number 1 is we could have bought their shares, in which case we had negotiated price. And from their point of view, it’s really not fair, we’re the insiders, were giving them a price, which from their point of view may or may not be fair. You can see that might be problematic. It might even be a conflict of interest if we even were to quote a price. So the other possibility is create a market, the market will determine the price.
So they want to sell, they want to sell, they don’t want to sell. They don’t want to sell, maybe they want to buy more, whatever it is, and we’re going to see what happens. I will tell you – I’ll reiterate there is a dividend policy in Horizon Kinetics, and we’re not going to change our dividend policy. So the Scott’s Liquid Gold share is to become Horizon Kinetics shares, you’re getting a dividend, whatever it’s going to be. So that’s a big difference from FRMO, and as a publicly traded vehicle and people can decide whether they like it, whether they don’t like it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it was liquidity needs of people who are not active in the business. That’s probably the best way of saying it. They get to a certain age and I think it’s only reasonable to provide liquidity options.
Therese Byars: The next part of the next question is a housekeeping question, which was asking about the annual meeting transcript. It has been posted since January 5 of this year. And if you don’t see it, please refresh your web page, the screen refresh it, and you should be able to see it. Now the rest of that question. Also, FRMO is clearly an amalgamation of various investment funds, investments, funds, fee streams. And I was wondering if you have ever considered providing some more detail that would allow investors to view the company as a – some of the parts wins, particularly given Horizon will have a value mark in the public market in the not-too-distant future. I’ve seen several public alternatives managers go through this exercise. And the shareholder refers to the Brookfield 2023 investor deck – Investor Day deck. So that’s the question basically.
Murray Stahl: Okay. Well, it’s going to happen. So when they’re these are financial/accounting/legal staff. They’re probably busily drawing up the documents as we speak, and we’re going to file an S-1 registration. There’s going to be a lot of information that thing, and quarterly, we’re going to give detail on the revenue streams and all that. So it’s all coming. There’s not a lot to hide, frankly.
Therese Byars: Next question. In the interim consolidated financial statement. On Page 7, it lists different number of shares owned in Winland compared to Page 8. What is the reason?
Murray Stahl: I think, don’t quote me on this, but you probably should ask the orders. I think the reason is the convention is, and on one page, they state the number of shares that they owned at a date in time, how many do we own at FRMO in that date in time. And the other, they state the weighted average number of shares is they were owned during the quarter. I believe that’s the accounting convention. So in round numbers, like right now, as of this second, I don’t know the exact number, but I would say we own, in round numbers, something like $1.6 million. That’s as close as I can get without sitting down, adding it up. We have a 10b-5 program open for Winland and we’re in the market every day buying shares.
Therese Byars: Another part of that question is, it was announced on December 26, 2023, that Horizon Kinetics is merging with Scott’s Liquid Gold. Was there any consideration given to merging with FRMO? And what was the reason for selecting Scott’s Liquid Gold as the public trading vehicle?
Murray Stahl: Okay. Was there any consideration given to merge with FRMO? Not really. So the next question would be, why? Well, look at it at a point of view of the nonactive shareholders. So FRMO, even though it has interest in Horizon Kinetics, it’s got all kinds of things, a lot of its securities. And from the interest of other shareholders, there might have been dilution. As a matter of fact, there would have been dilution, and it might not have been great because people could argue. It’s just a security, it’s an ongoing business. So an ongoing business trades at a multiple, the security is just worth its net asset value. So it might have been from a point of view of somebody looking for liquidity, it might not have been from some’s point of view, the best possible outcome.
So we really didn’t look it that way. Another reason is, FRMO is going in a not radically different direction but somewhat different direction. So FRMO is, if you look quarter-by-quarter how much we own Winland, Winland is an operating company. It’s mining crypto. It keeps increasing. We’re increasing the size of Winland. So FRMO, if we kept doing what we’re doing, we made an operating company, not an investment management company, so then somebody could say, if you’re taking an operating company managing crypto, not managing crypto, mining crypto and you’re integrating that with an investment management company, is that going to help the multiple? Is that going to hurt the multiple, and reasonable minds may differ in that. So rather than just make an experiment, we left it alone.
We didn’t go in that direction. We’re going to continue expanding the crypto mining business in a gradual but deliberate manner which is, , I think you’ll see is different than what Horizon Kinetics is doing with the asset management business. Did I answer that?
Therese Byars: Yes. I think you did. What are the ballpark odds that all of the related companies such as at FRMO, Winland, Consensus, Scott’s Liquid Gold, and HM Tech, et cetera, will be combined someday into one New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ traded stock?
Murray Stahl: Okay. So just to list the entities, if somebody were to urge us to do it. And if we said, yes, the entities would be FRMO, Horizon Kinetics, Horizon Common, HM Technology, otherwise known as HashMaster, Consensus Mining, Winland, seems like I’m missing something. I don’t know what it is. It seems like I’m missing something, but you get the idea. It would have a very big market capitalization just on a net asset value basis, but is that the highest and best use of everything because there’s going to be a lot of cash and marketable securities. So would it be valued like a holding company’s value would we get an operating multiple lot, and that’s a critical question. Is it better to have the different parts growing their unique businesses and getting a multiple on earnings.
