Investors Seek Mackey Ouster; Whither Byrne?

The New York Post reports today that a large investor in Whole Foods shares is recommending that CEO John Mackey be ousted for his anonymous Yahoo posts.

"Regardless of whether Mr. Mackey is ultimately found to have violated the law or the company's code of conduct," the group wrote, "his poor judgment has already damaged his credibility, jeopardized the proposed Wild Oats' acquisition and triggered a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation."

You could substitute "Patrick Byrne" for "Mackey" and "Overstock.com" for "Whole Foods" in the above, and it would describe precisely the same situation. As I've described, Byrne has defiantly posted under the pseudonym "Hannibal," and only recently started using his real name after the Whole Foods mess broke.

He and his house stalker Judd Bagley have committed far worse breaches of the most basic principles of corporate ethics.

Yet Byrne is getting a pass from his lapdog board and the SEC, which is conducting a slo-mo investigation of both him and his train wreck of a company.
© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.



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