Man, just when I thought I couldn't get any more cynical about this whole affair. Please, someone get a hungry lawyer on this, it seems to me these assets should be given to grieving families. What a fuckstick:
The latest update -- the first to involve its Ontario plant -- comes amid news that the chief financial officer of Menu Foods Income Fund sold nearly half his units in the pet food maker less than three weeks before it announced its massive product recall, according to insider trading reports.
The reports show that Mark Wiens sold 14,000 units for C$102,900 ($89,700) on February 26 and February 27. As of Monday's close of C$4.46, the units would be worth C$62,440.
After the sale, Wiens owned 17,193 units and had options to buy 101,812, the trading reports show.
On March 16, the pet food maker recalled 60 million containers of "cuts and gravy" style pet food amid reports of pet deaths due to contamination.
I know that it's ridiculous to assume that people who work with products for pets care about pets, but this whole situation just disgusts me. As a child-free cat owner, I am as protective and loving of my cats as my sister is of her son. And when I think of the elderly or shut-ins for whom pets are their only link to love...grrr. Hanging isn't good enough for these people.
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Love the Headline, CD
MJS and his wife, who I think might be a reincarnation of St. Francis gifted me with the most wonderful little dog whom Mrs. MJS has been rescuing for a while by then; it had been close to a year since my own beloved canine companion had passed on, so I wasn't up on pet news. I'm still dealing with trying to make sure anything I buy for "Darcy" isn't tainted. I'm now getting my food for him from a small online company that produces small batches of super organic food. They do auto delivery, and yunno what? It isn't even that much more expensive, not at all.
Food for all living sentient creatures should be produced locally! Support your local farmer's market!
As soon as I purchase a digital camera I'm going to be posting pictures of Mr. Darcy. Readers who can recommend a particular camera, suggestions are welcomed.
leah, i'm so happy for you!
i know you two must be lovely together. and knowing how much happier i am with my rescued babies, i'm confident your life will be rosier for sharing your home.
as to the headline, what else is there to say? greedy bastard cut and runs with no fucking thought to doing the right thing.
a lawyer friend of mine just said to me 'menu foods is going to be sued into bankruptcy' and i sincerely hope she's right.
I have a Sony Cybershot
Here.
I think the features are probably less important than how the camera feels in the hand. Nobody wants to use a camera that isn't a pleasure to hold.
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
I have a Sony Malvica from the late Jurassic
which is about the size, shape, weight and functionality of one of those thick glass bricks they put in schoolhouse windows to keep kids from being able to see outside and picture themselves out in the real world.
Well, okay, the camera itself isn't bad for its age, and the fact that it copies to a floppy was my choice (didn't think those little chips would last as a format.) Problem is that the battery will no longer hold more than a couple of minutes' worth of charge, and a replacement, while available, is nearly $70 even at MalWart. I think it's a memory issue and have been trying to find how to totally drain it, then recharge. Sony is very, very protective of its tech specs, the bastards.
Otherwise I would have taken a picture of the trees outside my office window. It looks like I live downwind of Chernobyl--this freeze just wiped out every big shagbark hickory. Things < 20 feet high are fine, the oaks weren't fully leafed yet, and the smoothbark hickory so far doesn't seem hurt so bad as the others. But it's a very disconcerting landscape: April and November in the same view. The big trees seem to be leafed with wet black toilet paper.
They say the dead leaves will start to fall around the end of this week, then the trees will have to reboot--set new buds and leaf them out all over again. Extension and forestry people vary between pooh-pooh no big deal this happens every few decades and these trees evolved for this shit, and wow I've been in this business for 40 years and have never seen it this bad.
Wipes out the cucumbers, beans, grapes, strawberries and corn though. Lettuce, onions, broccoli and brussel sprouts seem fine. And the rhubarb, while currently awful looking, will most likely come back after I cut off the stalks that were just getting big. Pie is therefore postponed.
One caveat
...and I bring this from years of writing about a company that uses stock and options to reward its employees and executives:
When did the options or shares in question vest?
When executives sell large amounts of stock over a 1-2 day period, and they've done the same thing year after year at around the same time, it's probably an indication that they weren't allowed to sell those shares before that date, selling a bunch as soon as possible to get cash to use for other purposes. It happens even in clean companies.
I don't have the time/resources to do this myself, but go to www.sec.gov and search for the company's filings - not only the insider sales, but the annual reports. Search the annual reports for the name of the executive who sold the stock and you'll find dates of option grants and such (maybe not in this year's report, maybe 5 years ago, maybe 3 years ago - but somewhere, documented to the SEC).
If the equity in question was cleared to sell long before he sold it, then there may be smoke here. If he couldn't sell it until about the time that he did sell it, then it's probably a coincidence.
It's always advisable to rule such things out before running into the wall at full speed. --Matt
--Matt
fair point, matt
but in this age of CEO criminality, i'm really not inclined to believe that this isn't your standard "oh shit! i better cash out while the gitten's good" behavior. someone (a trial lawyer) will be looking into this. and NOTHING excuses them knowing about the poisoned wheat and not saying anything about it for weeks. people lost pet members of family because of their silence, and they should burn in hell for it.