MAJOR PAPERS:

• The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reported that John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc (NASDAQ: WFMI), used a pseudonym to blog about his company on Yahoo message boards for eight years, including panning rival Wild Oats Markets Inc (NASDAQ: OATS), which Whole Foods is trying to buy.
• Carl Icahn's American Real Estate Partners new offer of $37.25 a share for Lear Corp. (NYSE: LEA), supported by the Lear board, has been rejected by proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Service, reported the Wall Street Journal.
• Barron's Online's (subscription required) "Inside Scoop" column reported that two institutional investors, Buckingham Capital Investment and Morgan Stanley, have sold about 3.2M shares of Build-A-Bear Workshop Inc (NYSE: BBW), as they feel the company won't get much more of a premium as a takeover target, if private equity is still even interested at all.
• JP Morgan Chase and Company (NYSE: JPM) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS) have obtained key roles advising Apollo Management on its expected IPO, reported the Financial Times (subscription required).

• According to representatives from Congress, exclusivity deals like Apple Inc's (NASDAQ: AAPL) multi-year iPhone contract with phone provider AT&T Inc (NYSE: T) trap customers, forcing the users to stay with the providers as long as they want to continue using certain devices, reported AppleInsider.com.

Newspaper wrap-up 7-12-07: Whole Foods Market CEO in trouble originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.