Whole Fools

I previously reported that John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, made some stupid antitrust-ish comments, in writing, while attempting to purchase rival Wild Oats. Now, it's come out that he's been trash talking Wild Oats on Yahoo's finance forum.

So let's get this straight. First anti-competitive statements in discoverable documents, in the middle of a merger. Then, surreptitious stock price manipulation of the company he is trying to purchase.

John Mackey needs to resign or by fired by his Board of Directors. Then, the Board needs to get on with cooperating with any DOJ or SEC investigation of Mackey's actions.

I can't see that the merger can still proceed at this point. Whole Foods management should call it off now, take full responsibility for the failure of the merger, and pay Wild Oats the full $15 million termination fee.

In the meantime, we'll have to hope that Wild Oats didn't put all of its eggs in the Whole Foods basket and can somehow pull through this disaster.

Full disclosure: Although I own stock in both companies, I am not an employee, director, manager, or even CEO of either. And my name is not Rahodeb.