Since the Times ran a story on this cultural trend in fall of 2008, and the following video was posted in December ‘09, you might say that accountants are again, late to the party but whatevs. And of course it’s an IFRS spin.
Patrick Byrne
With Overstock.com announcing last week that they would be restating their financial statements for the the last three quarters and their 2008 consolidated financial statements, it marked another open-mouth-insert-foot moment for Patrick Byrne and his Company.
This will be the third restatement in the last three years. We understand that financial reporting can be tricky but this doesn’t make for a very good pattern.
Winners:
• Steve Cohen, Michael Milliken, Sam Antar, Joe Nocera, Gary Weiss, Roddy Boyd, Barry Ritholtz, Felix Salmon, Henry Blodget, John Carney, Joe Wisenthal, et al. – Anyone and everyone vilified by Patrick Byrne because they questioned either him, his Company, or both. Patrick Byrne has always maintained that these people were part of large conspiracy of short sellers and financial bloggers and journalists. The restatement simply proves that whatever suspicions they had about Overstock, they were right. Plus all their friends and family on Facebook were violated by creepazoid and Deep Capture hatchet-man, Judd Bagley. That’s just not cool.
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Quote of the Day: He’s Also Good at Stalking | 02.03.10
By Caleb Newquist“I suspect he takes much more pleasure in baiting opponents than he does in running a company. The evidence he is good at baiting is much clearer than the evidence he is good at managing.”
~ Floyd Norris, New York Times Columnist on the Farmville obsessed, Segway Cowboy Patrick Byrne.
“But Byrne is evil. I’ll stand by that. More than evil, he’s soul-less evil. That said, I hope you understand that I don’t have anything against Byrne per se. I have things I want, and he stands in the way, so I now I’m removing him. At the same time, there’s no reason we can’t co-exist under specific circumstances.
~ William K. Wolfrum, on Farmville junkie and Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.
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Nasty CEO Patrick Byrne; Blogging Is a Good Idea; Against Tax Breaks for Haiti Relief
By Caleb NewquistAmerica’s Nastiest CEO [The Big Money via Gary Weiss]
We’re still wondering if the KPMG Salt Lake City office knows what they got themselves into by taking Overstock.com on as a client.
Gary Weiss notes:
The Big Money this afternoon came out with a devastating (and gutsy) article by former Fortune writer Roddy Boyd on the corporate crime petri dish that is Overstock.com, and its nuts CEO Patrick Byrne. The title is “America’s Nastiest CEO,” and it describes how Byrne has systematically harassed and attacked critics to cover up his own incompetence and wrongdoing–stuff that actually is a lot worse than has previously been acknowledged.
Calling all Manchester United fans [AccMan]
Dennis Howlett — never shy with his opinion — segues into an argument for blogging after noting that the Manchester United don’t need to:
There is a blog post over on Social Media Today that demonstrates as well as just about anything I’ve seen written why you should almost never listen to folk who call themselves ’social media experts/gurus/consultants.’ Awarding itself the grand title: World’s Most Valuable Soccer Team Doesn’t Get Social Media the author proceeds to show almost zero understanding of The Beautiful Game or the people who are part of that world.
But you already knew that was going to be the case. Back when we asked you to vote on which firm would be the next firm fired engaged by Overstock, over 42% of you said it would be KPMG.
This news comes despite reservations expressed by at least one reader who, at the time, had this comment:
I for one think it is sad that such a high percentage of survey responders think KPMG will pick up OSTK. I hope from a public opinion and liability standpoint that KPMG will resist the urge to add yet another high risk client to its listing and cause further damage its reputation.
Sorry, dear reader but apparently the high profile cat fight between the company and Grant Thornton wasn’t enough to scare KPMG off. Not even the very public revelation of Patsy’s creepy-ass stalking of Overstock critics in the financial media and blogosphere caused the KPMG partners in SLC to turn this client down.
Oh, and not to mention a management team who thought that filing unreviewed 10-Q was the best course of action. But as white-collar crime expert (and self-proclaimed crook) Sam Antar told us:
KPMG is taking a client with no management integrity and is well advised to study SAS No. 99 about “Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit” regarding the unethical “tone at the top” set by Overstock.com’s unprincipled management team. Every single initial financial report for every reporting period issued by Overstock.com has failed to comply with GAAP and other SEC disclosure rules since the company’s inception. Overstock.com has restated its financial reports two times in the last three years and now is trying to avoid a third restatement of financial reports resulting from its improper use of “cookie jar” reserves to inflate its financial performance from Q4 2008 to Q3 2009.
Guys and gals, we here at GC are concerned about something. Something other than who the next face of Accenture will be (honestly we’re excited about Chuck’s commanding lead).
No, we’re concerned that your humble servant and Farmville enthusiast Patrick Byrne is going to be unable to find an auditor for Overstock.com. The company has until January 18th to pull something together so the NASDAQ doesn’t delist them and if things continue the way they are, it’s going to be hello Pink Sheets.
Maybe things wouldn’t look so grim if PB hadn’t blown off CNN. Or if he hadn’t pissed off every single financial journalist and blogger by getting too friendy.
But now that Barry Ritholtz has called for a boycott, any hope for finding the next auditor to put the stamp of approval on OSTK’s financial statements is fading.
Wait! Gary Weiss has his doubts: “As for that boycott: great idea, except that with Byrne manipulating the financials, how would you know if it is having any impact?”
Whew! There’s still a glimmer.
Boycott Overstock.com [The Big Picture]
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Is Patrick Byrne’s Facebook Friends List Motivated by a Farmville Obsession?
By Caleb Newquist
We haven’t really touched on the Patrick Byrne’s ill-fated attempt to stalk his critics (and all their friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers) mostly because we weren’t on the list and those that were (including Gary Weiss, Sam Antar, Joe Wiesenthal, and Barry Ritholtz) are doing a fine job of pointing out how desperate, shady, and just plain fucking bad this makes Patsy, his head minion at DeepCapture Judd Bagley, and Overstock look.
We only bring it up now because we’d like to point out that it’s worth speculating on the other side of this story. Our contention is that P. Byrne, being of questionable mind and maturity, is OBSESSED with Farmville and it is his personal mission to destroy the Farmvilles of his critics and their FB friends (now who’s movin’ up in Farmville, bitches?).
This agonizing torture method will eventually wear down the haters to the point to where no one will be able to take the man, his doomed-to-fail quest to locate an auditor, and his company seriously and will thus give up their quest of destroying him.
The only other thing we can come up with is that he has an intense hatred of trite status updates and was going to expose everyone for their lack of substantive commentary but we find all his critics to be interesting bloggers, so we tossed that theory.
Grant Thornton and PwC have got to feel pret-tay good about how this all turned out. If you’ve got you own theories or thoughts on this situation, feel free to discuss them here.
• SEC’s Khuzami ‘Skeptical’ of Auditors’ Claims on Privilege – Privlege shmivlege. [FEI Financial Reporting Blog]
• Obama Proposes $12,000 “Cash for Caulkers” Program – Including the most immature montage ever. [TaxProf Blog]
• Overstock.com and Patrick Byrne Have an Enemies List That Includes Friends and Family Members of Critics – Using Facebook no less. Anyone surprised? [Sam Antar/White Collar Fraud]
• Madoff Auditor Plea May Signal Other Probe – Tax charges thrown in with David Friehling’s guilty plea may indicate that prosecutors may be building a case against other Friehling clients including the Madoff sons. [WSJ]
• Broadcom Co-Founder Cleared in Backdating Probe – “U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney made the announcement after Samueli, owner of the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks, spent two days testifying for the defense in the fraud trial of a former executive for the telecommunications chip maker. ”You have restored my faith in the criminal justice system,” an exhilarated Samueli told the judge in federal court in Santa Ana.” Avoiding prison will do that. [AP via NYT]
The Patrick Byrne Express (via Segway, natch) pulled over from its nationwide auditor search to pen the latest triumph in his quest to refute every Overstock/Patrick Byrne hater on the planet.
Patsy’s latest letter informs us of the settlement that Overstock has reached with Rocker Partners, one of those short-selling hedge fund haters, for $5 million.
His masterpiece opens with “The good guys won” and then rambles on to tell us how he feels about pretty much everyone in financial media. And that’s what this was really all about. It wasn’t about the money, you fools. This was about exposing the anti-Overstock/Patrick Byrne contingent:
