This morning, it was announced that Usana founder and current chairman and CEO Myron Wentz offered to buy all outstanding stock of Usana Health Sciences (NASDAQ:USNA) at $26.00 per share. The closing price of the stock on May 12 was $20.83, so this represented almost a 25% premium.
The buyout would be made through Unity Acquisition Corp, an entity controlled by Gull Holdings. Gull Holdings is owned by Myron Wentz, and that entity (along with the “other participants” in the buyout) owns 68% of Usana currently.
Experts speculated that the company might be taken private in order to prevent future scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Indeed, the company says that going private will give them “significant cost savings.”
Herbalife (NYSE:HLF) executives identified Venezuela as a Top 10 market for the company in their May 2, 2008, conference call, and indeed, triple digit new supervisor growth was reported there in the first quarter. However, according to former Herbalife Director of Venezuela and Columbia, Ricardo Hollander, all is not as it seems in Venezuela. Read the rest of this entry »
This message was posted today on the Yahoo stock board. I sometimes forget about this. About the fact that Kroll tipped off Usana Health Sciences (NASDAQ:USNA) about Barry Minkow’s investigation of the company and how these insiders unloaded a ton of stock right before the release of the report.
I did a post yesterday on WalletPop about LifeLock. They basically advertise services to protect you from identity thieves.
When the service first was unveiled, I was intrigued. So much so, that I signed up to be an affiliate. (I never actually marketed the services as an affiliate, sold any products, or received any compensation, though.)
The concern of identity theft is very real, as many people have their data compromised each year. I even had my personal details compromised in 2006, thanks to the carelessness of the AICPA (the national professional organization for CPAs). So LifeLock initially seems to make sense… Read the rest of this entry »
Reformed white collar criminal Barry Minkow has been investigating multi-level marketing schemes such as Usana Health Sciences, Herbalife Ltd., and PrePaid Legal. One of the most recent revelations by Minkow and his Fraud Discovery Institute was that the president of Herbalife, Gregory Probert, did not have the MBA he and the company claimed in SEC filings.
The scam is simple: Call in sick to get a day off, but then pick the next shift which puts you into overtime status. You still have your day off, but your next day is at time-and-a half.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel uncovered this clever scam run by Wisconsin prison guards. The story starts off with one sergeant at the Green Bay Correctional Institution. In October 2006, he came in for an overtime shift (or two) on the days he was scheduled to be off. But within a day or two of those overtime shifts, he would call in sick. He had a total of 4 sick days that month, meaning that he did get days off, yet he got huge overtime pay. The newspaper says he had 17 sick days in 2006 that came just after he worked overtime on a day he was scheduled to be off. He earned a total of $117,764 in 2006. Read the rest of this entry »
To many, my fight against Mary Kay Cosmetics is puzzling. Why would I want to waste my time with it? After all, they’re only selling lipstick. It’s a harmless company started by a little old lady 45 years ago who wanted to give women an opportunity.
WRONG! Mary Kay Inc. is anything but harmless, and that’s why it’s so important for me to continue to educate people about the company. They are running a scam that brings in $2 billion in sales to headquarters each year.
Where does this money come from? Often from those who can least afford it. The name of the game is recruiting and frontloading. Bring her in and get her to buy an inventory package of $600 to $4800 right away. (If she doesn’t buy within the first couple of weeks, the chances that she will buy anything at all go down exponentially.) Read the rest of this entry »
Last week in the Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) earnings conference call, the company’s executives had the following to say about the SEC’s investigation of the company:
Patrick Byrne
So, is it fair to say that all these other issues that the knuckleheads keep on raising as issues, the SEC examiners, looked at and sprinkled holy water on?
David Chidester
Yeah, I mean they took a deep dive they do that every three years or so. And again they are very good to work with. It is not adversarial at all and we’ve got all the issues resolved and it’s nice to know that we could move forward.
Those statements by Patrick Byrne and David Chidester were a big no-no, for two main reasons. Read the rest of this entry »
I couldn’t make up stuff this good if I tried. Seriously. The things that Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) says are a journalist’s dream. (Yes, if Byrne can think of himself as a journalist, so can I!) I reported the other day on his comments about the secret fax machine at CNBC. Here’s the video of the clown actually saying it. Skip ahead to 5:00 to get to the good stuff.
And when Liz Claman says she’s never seen such a fax machine, Byrne says “I have a good source on that.” I bet you do, Wacky Patty.
Tracy Coenen is a forensic accountant and fraud examiner who investigates white collar crimes, including cases of financial statement fraud, embezzlement, tax fraud, and insurance fraud. She is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud and more than 100 articles on fraud featured in industry publications.
