Can an analyst covering Usana Health Sciences really provide an independent analysis of the company if he is a distributor? Tim Ramey covers Usana for DA Davidson. Isn’t it kind of weird to cover the company and to be a distributor? And at the very least, wouldn’t this be an important disclosure to make before recommending a “buy” on Usana stock?

From the insider on the Yahoo message board:

tim ramey signed up as an associate in may of 2005. he listed the address of 5651 zena road north west (nw) salem oregon 97304.

his phone number is 503 36X-1X85. he will claim that he made no money at usana as associate. that is the point, right? no one does. why worry when you can make commissions repurchasing one hundred thirty thousand shares when the stock went below 30 and d a davidson received commissions repurchasing about five million in shares. ramey knows where to make money and that is not as a usana associate.

the reporter who contacted you from the new york times was my contact. i am the one who handed your ‘associate’ the dvd at convention. the hypocrisy here is mind-boggling. when dr wentz was in the paper for selling shares in february our analysts screamed that it was less than one percent of the float and no big deal. then after the crash into the high twenties, we decided myron should start repurchasing as no one else was. he repurchased less than one percent of the float yet we publicized it like a big occasion. how is one sell less than one percent not a big deal and a buy less than one percent a huge deal? it is the standard operating procedures for us.

i will post this message shortly.

Here’s a list of companies Tim covers. I wonder if he has any undisclosed relationships with others?

American Italian Pasta Company AITP
Brown-Forman Inc. B BF-B
Constellation Brands Inc. STZ
Del Monte Foods Co. DLM
Flowers Foods Inc. FLO
Hormel Foods Corporation HRL
Kellogg Company K
Kraft Foods Inc. KFT
Martek Biosciences Corp.* MATK
Nu Skin Enterprises Inc. NUS
Omega Protein Corp. OME
Sara Lee Corp. SLE
Smithfield Foods Inc. SFD
Tyson Foods, Inc. TSN
USANA Health Sciences Inc.* USNA

The issue has been raised of the possibility that Tim is only on the “distributor list” so that he can receive distributor newsletters and such. I reject that as a defense for not disclosing this distributor relationship. If there was nothing improper and nothing to hide, I believe it would have been disclosed.