This made us laugh hysterically when we read it: So is Patrick Byrne floating a trial balloon about taking Overstock.com private? Or is he just desperately trying to goose / manipulate the price of his under-siege-by-short-sellers stock? We're guessing the latter. Pretty poor LBO candidate or buyout candidate in general without earnings or even positive EBITDA. And a pretty transparent ploy. He also whines some more about short sellers:
“The shorts (speculators) are very tight with the people in the Department of Justice and the S.E.C.,” he said. “The FBI . . . Canada . . . Caribbean . . . I think this leads back to organized crime in central and eastern Europe. This is all mobbed up.”
*Yawn*
No one has fought a more bitter campaign against hedge funds and stock market speculators than Overstock.com’s embattled founder and chief executive, Patrick Byrne.
Now he tells the Herald that he is willing to consider yanking his company from the stock market altogether through a management buyout.
Potential deal size: well over half a billion dollars.
“Management is certainly reviewing all such options open to us,” he said. “If the right . . . fund or buyout firm came along and wanted to be our partner, it is something we would look at.”
Byrne, family and friends already own two-thirds of the shares.....
His controversial crusade, which has even led to conflict with the Wall Street Journal, has come at a heavy cost to him, his investors and his company.
“It is an enormous strain on the company,” he said. “Last year it may have taken up 50 percent or more of my time. This year it’s more like 10 percent.”....
“I don’t think we’ll have positive EBITDA (this year),” Byrne said, “but we might be within sight of it.” EBITDA stands for “earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization,” - sometimes called trading profits.
Furious CEO charges market overstocked with Overstock.com - Boston Herald
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