Overstock.com's Treasurer Has Left the Building

Another Overstock official leaves for greener pastures

Sam Antar has a blog item on the latest news from the loony bin that is Overstock.com: seems that its Treasurer, Rich Paongo, quietly skedaddled in February, and the company "forgot" to file a Form 8-K disclosing that material event.

What makes it material is that Paongo left one month after his name emerged in correspondence with then-CFO Chidester over the company's hidden cash flow woes. Chidester left the company at the same time as Paongo, but the latter's departure was never revealed.

Indeed, word of his decision to seek greener pastures in the middle of a recession came not from any official channel but from an anonymous comment to my blog item linked above. The comment was from out in Utah, no doubt from one of the company's numerous loose-lipped insiders. It's confirmed by Paongo's Linkedin.com and Twitter public profiles.

I guess Byrne is hoping for the Allied Capital Treatment in his ongoing tussle with the SEC. He may be right. It's hard reading the SEC Inspector General's report without realizing that Overstock probably has got this matter licked. But hey, I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Byrne, meanwhile, has until Wednesday to file a 10-K for 2009. Followers of this always entertaining company have marked that date on their calendars, but I doubt that these dudes have got their Quarterly Lie figured out just yet. Another delay would not surprise me.

© 2010 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.