What Is Whole Foods Going To Do About CEO Mackey Using Online Alias Postings? (WFMI, OATS)

Whole Foods (NASDAQ:WFMI) is seeing shares indicated down about 1.5% after an interesting development where its CEO John Mackey used an online handle of "rahodeb" to attack rival Wild Oats (NASDAQ:OATS) from 1999 to 2006.  The online message board statements predicted the company would fall into bankruptcy and then be sold after its stock fell below $5 per share.

The company acknowledged that the postings by "rahodeb" were written by CEO John Mackey after the FTC made this known in a lawsuit trying to block Whole Foods from acquiring Wild Oats.  Supposedly the company defended Mackey’s postings, saying they were being taken out of context years later.

Mackey has also used the blog on his company’s Web site recently to challenge the FTC’s reasoning that it needed to stop Whole Foods from eliminating a competitor.  You should see how long his post his, because you’ll wonder how he had time during that post to run the company.

You can bet that Mackey is not alone in corporate America in using Blogs and ‘online aliases’ to either boost their views and attack competitors.  And you can bet that Mr. Mackey is going to have more explaining to do before this is anywhere from being water under the bridge.  The company noted that these were Mackey’s comments and not that of the company, but that would make one wonder if the company is hinting that it would make its founder stay at arm’s length or worse in the future.  We’ll see, but this one is probably going to be a future case study about what not to do.

This definitely falls under "WHAT WAS HE THINKING?"…….. 

Jon C. Ogg
July 12, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.