In a sign that you can't keep a good man down, the SEC has dropped its investigation into message board postings by Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFMI) CEO John Mackey.

Reuters writes that the agency as "concluded a probe into its chief executive's anonymous Web chat room messages about then-rival Wild Oats Markets and recommended no action be taken."

Mackey can now go back to posting on other subjects but will have to come up with a new name to disguise his real identify. The old one, Rahodeb, has already been taken.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Whole Foods CEO off the hook on message board posts originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The CEO of Whole Foods Markets Inc. (NYSE: WFMI) is proving to have an ability, rare among CEOs, to hang himself with his electronic words. The Wall Street Journal reports that between January 2000 and last August, John Mackey used the name "Rahodeb" -- an anagram of his wife Deborah's name -- to make nearly 1,400 posts at Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) Finance message boards designed to pump up Whole Foods' stock and denigrate that of its then-rival Wild Oats Markets Inc. (NASDAQ: OATS).

My favorite Rahodeb quote was used to cut Wild Oats down to size. He often criticized Perry Odak, Wild Oats' former CEO, who resigned last year. "While Odak was trying to figure out the business and conducting expensive 'research studies,' to help him figure things out, Whole Foods was signing and opening large stores in OATS territories," Rahodeb wrote in 2005. "Odak drove off most of the long-term OATS natural foods managers" and brought in executives who "didn't know too much about the natural/organics industry or their customers."

Meanwhile Mackey also made use of e-mail to make comments that made him look bad. His comments about the competitive impact of his proposed Wild Oats merger suggest to the government that the merger's intent is to raise consumer prices.

Continue reading Whole Foods CEO determined to do himself in -- electronically

Whole Foods CEO determined to do himself in -- electronically originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 11 Jul 2007 21:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.