What was he thinking? Whole Foods just confirmed the bizarre news that its chief executive John Mackey has been using a pseudonym to post for years on a Yahoo! Finance forum, often boasting about Whole Foods’ success and slamming Wild Oats, a big natural foods competitor and now Whole Foods’ takeover target. Last month, the FTC moved to block the Whole Foods-Wild Oats merger, and Mackey’s postings put a legal twist in the FTC challenge. The task for investigators now is to determine whether Mackey made any material misstatements or omissions. Here’s some excerpts of Mackey’s posts from the Austin American-Statesman:
In more than 1,000 postings, rahodeb discussed topics including Whole Foods’ financial performance and stock price and a long list of criticisms of Wild Oats, the Colorado-based company that is Whole Foods’ biggest competitor among natural foods grocers.
“Why would anyone want to buy OATS?” he asked in January 2005, using Wild Oats’ ticker symbol. Certainly not Whole Foods, he added, saying that the company’s shares were overpriced.
On March 17, 2005, he said the company had “no intellectual capital, bad real estate, significant future writeoffs, negative brand equity.”
On Nov. 23, 2005, he said that Wild Oats was “steadily running out of cash and continues to borrow money to stay afloat.”
Even if the posts are not in violation of any SEC regulation, they certainly don’t bode well for Mackey’s credibility or Whole Foods’ integrity. Check out the whole deception reported in this article from the Austin American-Statesmen.
(Image of Whole Foods Market by That Other Paper, CC 2.0)
