This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lastexit (talk | contribs) at 14:17, 29 April 2006 (fleshing out media coverage, controversy re naked shorting, adding two level 2 heads, separating out "personal life" from professional background). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 14:17, 29 April 2006 by Lastexit (talk | contribs) (fleshing out media coverage, controversy re naked shorting, adding two level 2 heads, separating out "personal life" from professional background)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Patrick M. Byrne is President and CEO of Overstock.com. He is most known for his recent allegations that naked short sellers (whom he has referred to as the "dark lord of the Sith") have been targetting the stock of Overstock.com.
Background
Patrick Byrne received a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College (Asian Studies & Philosophy), a master’s degree in philosophy from Cambridge University as a Marshall scholar, and a doctorate in philosophy from Stanford University.
Byrne served as Chairman, President and CEO of Centricut, LLC, a manufacturer of industrial torches, then held the same three positions at Fechheimer Brothers, Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway company manufacturing police, firefighter, and military uniforms. Currently Byrne is CEO and President of Utah-based internet retailer Overstock.com.
Media attention
Since Byrne launched Overstock.com in 1999, he and his company have garnered attention from numerous national media outlets. Among them are the Wall Street Journal, ABC News with Peter Jennings, Fortune, CBS Marketwatch, and Business Week, among others, and is a frequent guest on Bloomberg TV, CNBC, and Fox News shows (such as Cavuto and Kudlow & Cramer). In 2002, Byrne was named to Business Week’s list of the 25 most influential people in e-Business: the magazine cited survival strength and vision as qualities that qualified Byrne for the list. In 2003 Ernst & Young awarded Byrne an “Entrepreneur of the Year” award in the category of Lifetime Achievement.
More recently, however, he has received critical treatment in the press, stemming largely because of his adoption of a controversial stance concerning an alleged market-wide conspiracy to commit naked short-selling. He is also criticized for his often sharp attacks on stock research analysts critical of his company and on individual members of the press.
Byrne's allegations concerning a massive naked short-selling "conspiracy" have drawn criticism from media outlets as diverse as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Fortune and the New York Post.
Byrne's also has asserted that he is under attacks from "dishonest" members of the press, and has singled out journalists at CBS Marketwatch, Dow Jones News Service and the New York Post.
That stance has also drawn criticism. In a column in the New York Times in March 2006, journalist Joseph Nocera condemned Byrne's attacks on analysts and the press as a "campaign of menace."
Personal life
Byrne has a black belt in tae kwon do and once pursued a career in professional boxing. He is a cancer survivor, and has ridden a bicycle across the country to raise awareness and money for cancer research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
Crusade against naked shorting
In 2005, Byrne began to believe that Naked Short Sellers were targeting the shares of Overstock.com. Short selling is a way for an investor to bet that the share price of a company will decline, namely by borrowing shares from someone else, selling them, and then when the price is lower buying them back to return to the person one borrowed shares from. The profit comes from the difference between the sales price and the amount one has to pay to buy the shares back. In naked short selling, the shares are not borrowed beforehand. The practice is controversial, and its prevalence is open to dispute. Byrne alleges that this is occurring to his stock.
To announce his belief and the research associated with it, Byrne held a conference call which was widely publicized because of its many allegations, including comparing the short sellers to the "dark lord of the Sith".
Besides controversy over what many allege to be unstable behaviour of Byrne in the matter, there is a more general debate about whether a CEO should be concerned about naked short selling of the stock of his company. The reason is because if the CEO believes in the strength and future prospects of his company, naked short selling would cause the price of the company to temporarily fall, allowing the CEO to buy more of the valuable company at cheaper prices.
In March 2006, the chairman of Overstock.com, John Byrne -- Patrick Byrne's father -- said that he was thinking of stepping down in disagreement over his son's "jihad" over naked short-selling. This development contributed to the controversy over Byrne's behavior.
See also
External links
- Overstock.com
- Byrne's Pan-Mass Speech
- Fortune Magazine article on short-selling crusade
- Documents related to Overstock.com's lawsuit against Rocker Partners and Gradient Analytics
- "The bizarre world of Patrick Byrne's Overstock" - The Register
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