actually neither side did a good job in this interview. byrnes wasn't at his best today....he was much sharper friday. Jeff Matthews came across pretty smarmy and i would never have guessed he was so effeminate (not that it matters). Jeff's letter to ostk's ex Treasurer was about as shady as they come. Jeffâs (surprisingly smooth) recruitment -----Original Message----- From: Jeff Matthews [mailto:jeff@rampartners.com] Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 10:34 AM To: kath@alumni.nd.edu Subject: Overstock questions Dear Kathryn: You may know me via my blog (JeffMatthewsIsNotMakingThisUp) in which I've made some observations about Overstock and the apparent inconsistencies in many of the forecasts and projections given by Patrick Byrne. Most of these inconsistencies have been ignored by most of Wall Street, for obvious reasons, but are available for anyone to see in the transcripts of the conference calls-- and I have a long-standing dislike of CEOs who mislead investors, especially the small investors of which Patrick Byrne claims to be a champion. I know you have left the company and I wanted to speak with you about what is going on there. I trust that as Treasurer you were privy to the issues that an outside observor such as myself can only guess at, but that working under a control freak like Byrne you had very little actual authority or responsibility for the nonesense that went on. Anything we talk about would be for background purposes only and would never appear, in any way/shape/form, in my blog. Why should you bother? I have seen, in the course of 25 years on Wall Street, many excellent companies and many mediocre companies, and I have seen more speculative companies with promising business models, like Overstock, in which a CEO more concerned with his image and his public standing than to the business itself does great damage to the business at the expensive of small investors. My observation is that many good people that do not have the ability to control or alter the situation get dragged down in the aftermath--and your public role at Overstock was limited to setting up and introducing conference calls for Dr. Byrne, not in perpetuating the hype. My direct, confidential telephone number is 203-913-6684. Sincerely yours; Jeff Matthews
we all howled when that interview was on. Patrick is ridiculous. I'm surprised he didn't accuse Jeff of being under a "Mind Trick" of sorts..LOL "always two there are....a master and an apprentice"
I agree with you on this. I think that Pat can not say too much due to the law suit and his attorneys have advised him not too. Looking vulnerable is a wise way to maybe draw out an emotional response that may prove valuable in the suit. There is definitely something funny with the float. If he is correct in his assertions I wish him success. Just based on the way Ron conducts the interviews, I would not be surprised if he does not know more than he is saying, but can not make this part of his report yet until he can confirm further information. He sort of hinted that he had more in the first interview with Pat and could not air it yet. Pat seems to know this too. Read between the lines.
http://www.ncans.net/img/Eisinger citation.pdf Say what you want. Does this look familiar.? Here's your interview: http://www.vmsdigital.com/MyFiles.aspx?Onum=AC9D6FF5-1F04-4FA6-BC44-A160C543BE71 I know it looks wierd. I've only heard of Bryne for a very few weeks. But when I heard the call last Friday, nothing surprised me. I had heard it, and read it before, since around 1999. It took a long time to get here. I believe most everyword he says, save for a misspeak here and there, because it is true. All over this great land, people like you and me are meeting with State Regulators, Attorneys' General....the Agencies don't have the balls for this fight. They want to do it on their terms, their timetable. No. No More. You should see the diagrams, charts, graphs non - professonals have put together putting this theory into motion. The States will fill their treasuries. I remind you. Ladenburg Thalmann, a major player in this bullshit, has a player from, I can't remember, New Valley? His name is Carl Ichan. Think about it. The Eisenger deal is real. My guess is, he leaks this stuff out as he gets more pissed at being screwed, and then one day, he calls a press conference, says.. "here's all the shares, certs and statements, what's trading". Run a google on Ladenburg Thalmann, Equity Line Financing. Here, I'll help you and give you one... http://www.dealflowmedia.com/issues/pipesreport/1_7/ Last week, Sedona got discovery. A Federal court thinks there is enough here for discovery. It took, by the by two years. This is the biggest story most of us will ever see. Look past OSTK and think about a consortium, including Amir Elgindy ( in prison), Jeff Royer, FBI agent in Charge Oklahoma City (pleaded guilty), aided by the brokers and clearing firms (see Refco Wells' Notice re: Sedona) aiding the hedgies. As traders, can you really ignore and not investigate the possiblitity that some companies have Naked Shorts in excess of their floats (SEC's words, not mine)? I watched the desks obliterate David Blech's stocks, take them to pennies, destroy his net capital, then some later go into the hundreds, Blechless. When the squeeze comes, and I've been told by regulators this will end, what do you think desk A will do to desk B? the secret is, be there when that train leaves the station. I've waited this long, another month won't kill me. One more. Jeff (Eddie Haskell) on the call.. "the Prime Brokers won't allow it. " Want to hear the Bear Stearns call where they say...."uh oh" ? I have that. Request it, and I'll put it here. I'll leave w/Ron's word. "this won't end anytime soon:. Hey, someone call NBC and ask why Sharon Hoffman, producer of the Eagletech Dateline piece, doesnt work fo rDateline anymore? Nothing fishy there.
I put the articles on the other boards, but I'll put them here for you to chew on too, since its a slow day. Look at milkin's own references to Star Wars......... I believe this is why Bryne lampoons MM w/ his own quirks. Notice the defense of the high and mighty then (MM) and the defense of the high and mighty now (hedgies). I know some of you were having your asses wiped by mommy at the time, but I was there. If you're ever a victim in something like this down the road, think back to this, and you'll know what people are going through. MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD MILKEN Robert Lenzner, Globe Staff 1,335 words 2 April 1989 The Boston Globe THIRD A1 English (Copyright 1989) NEW YORK - Call Michael Milken the "Rain Man" of Wall Street. It is fitting that the superstar Milken should have been indicted on the eve of this year's Academy Awards: The "junk-bond king" made the greatest fortune in Wall Street history by dint of his perfect memory for numbers. And it is strangely appropriate that this "Rain Man" -- who made $550 million in 1987 alone -- will be arraigned here next week, missing for the first time in recent years the "Predators Ball," the annual get-together of the fraternity of junk bond dealers and takeover artists that is scheduled to be held in Beverly Hills. For though Milken was by profession an investment banker, he also was in many ways a creature of the show-business culture of Southern California. Milken, the antiestablishment outsider who lived a workaholic existence, often spoke in Hollywoodese, too. His aim, he said, was to be Luke Skywalker, the hero, rather than Darth Vader, the enemy, of "Star Wars" fame. In 1986, to sell the financial services of Drexel Burnham Lambert, Milken paid the pop star Madonna a packet of money to make a 10-minute promotional film that has since been retired from distribution. Madonna recruited Ivy League business school graduates and Japanese bond buyers by singing her theme song "Material Girl" with lyrics suggesting that wealth and a flashy life waited at Drexel. The production symbolized the crazy, colorful greed of the mid-1980s. Loaded with flashy jewelry and provocatively dressed, Madonna sang: "I'm a Double B girl in a high yield world, "Drexel, Drexel, Drexel." Interspersed with Madonna's prancing were shots of Milken's most glamorous clients, Steven Ross, Warner Communications chairman; Rupert Murdoch, the newspaper publisher; Steve Wynn, gambling casino proprietor; and Ronald Perelman, chairman of Revlon Corp. All were conspicuously absent from the full-page "Support Milken" ads taken out by the indicted deal-maker last week. So were Milken's junk bond crowd from Southern California and the arbitrageurs who paid for their Easthampton beach houses with the profits from Milken's deals. Henry Kravis was not listed either, because Milken stands accused of telling Ivan Boesky to buy shares of Storer Broadcasting common stock during the second week of July 1985. Milken knew Kravis was about to raise his bid for the communications company. Milken did not even split the profits with Boesky on this one, according to the indictment. Nor was Ted Turner on the list, though he paid Drexel $66 million in 1985 to acquire MGM/UA. That is because Milken has been charged with tipping Boesky off to the Turner Broadcasting deal for MGM/UA in August 1985, which netted Drexel more than $3 million, according to the indictment handed down last week. The charges brought last week in the US attorney's 108-page indictment could cost Milken about $5.5 billion if he is found guilty. They raise the question of who Milken the superstar really is: a persecuted restructurer of America, an antiestablishment genius, a grandiose crook, a naive financial saint, or some odd mixture of all the above and more. Though Milken has packaged himself as a man not interested by money, he never reduced his unparalleled take from Drexel -- 30 percent of the revenues he created, or more than $1 billion by the time he was 41 years old. The devoted family man who is supposed to be more concerned about his children's welfare than a leveraged buyout left for the office at 3:30 a.m. and often returned late in the evening. The man who wanted to reeducate American children said he trusted the good intentions of the likes of Victor Posner, Ivan Boesky, Meshulam Riklis and Bennett Lebow. He tells friends he believes "in the good side of every one -- that people are basically good," said Judith Wolin, an old Califiornia friend who has known Milken since they were classmates in third grade. "Michael always looks at the glass as half-full," Wolin said. "He is a believer in people's potential." The more famous Milken became, the more private, isolated and mysterious he seemed to be. Along the way, he became larger than life. Secretly, he must have enjoyed the notion that he alone created 75 percent of Drexel's profits and was in absolute control of Drexel, though he was neither an officer nor a manager of the firm. As Milken's reputation grew, he began to be called the new J.P. Morgan. He was the puppet master, the kingmaker of the takeover craze. "Everyone knew he pulled the strings. Everyone knew he was in control of Drexel, maybe the world," said a good friend and admirer. "This is the way he got himself grandiose." "Why should greed have a cutoff point?" asked a psychiatrist with several Wall Streeet investment banker patients. "This was in excess of anything reasonable." Milken was not grandiose in the thesaurus sense, which uses "pompous, bombastic, flashy, flamboyant, ornamental and flowery" as synonyms. He was not interested in fast cars, fast women, big yachts and outsized palaces. Because he did not seek out the spotlight, Milken became even more powerful, looming gigantically over a money-mad era. When people like Business Week start calling you the new J.P. Morgan, it is easy to believe. And Milkens' secret accretion of wealth from the ages of 36 to 42, which is believed to have reached the $1 billion to $2 billion area, encouraged a hugely inflated notion of himself, a close friend and fellow investment banker said. "Before Giuliani, before the scandal broke, using inside information was common practice on Wall Street," said this Milken friend. "Mike thought this was the way you operated. I don't think he said, 'I'm above the law.' I don't think he ever preceived there was a line there to cross." The Milken believers also do not regard their hero as a crook. They see him as a man being persecuted by the establishment for having dared both to challenge it and to restructure a good deal of it. D. William Carey, chairman of Town and Country Jewelry, a Chelsea, Massachusetts concern with $425 million in sales, calls Milken a "caring, sensitive businessman," but he recognizes that "any superstar makes enemies. All superstars become targets." Milken was the savior of many medium-sized entrepreneurs who could not borrow unlimited money from their banks. Samuel Krasney, vice chairman of Banner Industries, the largest distributer of aircraft equipment in the world, said he formed "an emotional bond" for the "brilliant, earthy, low-key, intensely directed" young banker whom he described as a combination of Beethoven, Toscannini, and Heiftez -- a composer, conductor and violinist rolled into one. Town and Country's Carey added: "None of the other major-tier firms would give me the dirt under their fingernails. Mike found a way to get me money." Milken's greatest admirers at Drexel Burnham are bewildered by the charges against their champion. One said one-third of the allegations "made no sense," another third were "improbable" and the last third "made sense if Mike was a crook." The financial house that Milken built is hung on his petard. It cannot entirely shed Milken or else its other stars and its clients will leave. So Drexel will pay his enormous legal bills, despite his personal wealth, which rivals the firm's capital. This is yet another note of awkward public relations that will not work will for the image department. Little does Fred Joseph, president of Drexel Burnham, realize that many of his clients are shopping for a more respectable name to be their investment banker. So much for the Joseph plan to sweep past Goldman Sachs into the high class bracket of Wall Street. So much for Wall Street's "Rain Man." LENZNE;03/31 NKELLY;04/03,21:03 WILKEN02
Rocker counterfiles: http://www.thestreet.com/_tsclsii/tech/internet/10238680.html Missing: 1 Massive naked-short squeeze Where: Nasdaq (OSTK) Last seen: CNBC + ET If found please return to its rightful owners (the longs) at your local church where you will find them kneeling and mumbling prayers of hope (stay long and strong, stay long and strong...)
SOP. He has to defend himself. Remember that comment PB made to Insana....:" are Carole and Jesse hiding under their desks?" He is very sure of himself, and that cannot be comforting to the defendants of that suit. And Jesse is on vacation for a week. If you were attacked like this, would you take vacation? What a soap opera. This will really instill confidence in the market.
The whole point of a vacation is to get away from stress and if a raving lunatic isn't stress, then I don't know what is.