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Non-Tech : Martha Stewart's Omni (MSO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: hugh thorne who wrote (46)2/3/2003 7:39:05 PM
From: Sr K  Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 136
 
If Waksal were smart, he would have sold some IMCL before the FDA decision, just as a "hedge" rather than have everything riding on an approval. Martha tendered all 5,000 of her shares into the BMY tender offer for 20% which was, obviously, vastly oversubscribed. She sold a little over 1,000 and got the 3,9xx shares back. Her lawyer's 6/12/2002 letter refers twice to her "remaining" shares. These were shares she had already tendered for sale, so it's not like she out of the blue decided to unload them. Also, I think she argues that she was lightening up all her equities, as a lot of people were doing post 9/11/2001, after the big bounce from 9/21/2001 into the end of the year.

I think she wasn't stupid, wasn't greedy. She got a call from her broker and took his advice that the stock was going to trade down. Also, Merrill Lynch did not enter Stop Loss Orders for NASDAQ stocks into a computer system. It was a manual trigger, she got a phone call, she sold, and afterward called Waksal, who did not return her phone call.

If she had been doing something improper, she would have, among many possibilities, called Waksal before selling. She knows better.

The amazing thing is that Faneuil is the only one we know did something wrong by passing on info about another ML client's activity. But I used to hear all the time, the Bill Gates was doing such and such, or Carl Icahn, etc. Mostly that's BS, sometimes it might have been true, but Faneuil got some form of immunity and he's the one who violated ML policy and the law. The Fed's screwed up in my opinion by granting him limited immunity for his testimony.