gmcr

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Securities Fraud Litigation

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gmcr green mountain coffee roastersWay back in 2011, a class action suit was filed against Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR)… you know, the Keurig coffee maker guys. The gist of the suit was that the company was misrepresenting its inventory and revenues. The company was facing a ton of criticism over its financial statements. David Einhorn criticized the company heavily in a presentation he called “GAAP-uccino” at the Value Investing Conference.

Lo and behold, on November 9, 2011, Green Mountain announced earnings that were below expectations, and the stock price tumbled. In step the class action lawyers.

The case was finally settled in 2018, with Green Mountain agreeing to pay $36.5 million into a settlement fund. Sounds lovely, right? Except if you’re one of the investors who lost money during the relevant time period. All together, more than 25,000 claims were received by Epiq, the company in charge of claims administration.

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Cooking the Books: Financial Statement Revisions

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In the current issue of Forbes magazine, accounting watchdog Francine McKenna has written an article about the SEC’s failure to take a hard line on accounting fraud in public companies. Despite all of the high profile accounting frauds uncovered in the past decade, the Securities & Exchange Commission appears to be focusing its efforts on going after Ponzi schemes rather than accounting fraud. Francine reports that of the 735 enforcement actions brought by the SEC in 2011, only 89 were related to fraudulent or misleading accounting and disclosures by public companies.

Some people say that Sarbanes Oxley has been doing its job relative to increasing prevention and detection of accounting fraud, but evidence of that is almost non-existent.  Auditors would have the public believe that auditors are being more effective in finding and reporting fraud, but the evidence does not back this up.

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Green Mountain Inventory Buildup: Fraud or Mismanagement?

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gmcr green mountain coffee roastersSam Antar, former CFO of Crazy Eddie (massive fraud in the 1980’s) has been systematically uncovering fraud at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (NASDAQ: GMCR) for years. In spite of this, investors continue to run up the price of the stock, believing the hype and the numbers put out by management.

Yesterday, Sam exposed even more about the potential fraud, targeting suspected inventory manipulation that could fraudulently inflate GCMR’s earnings. The overstatement of inventory improperly inflates earnings, and Sam surmises that Green Mountain may be doing exactly that.

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Sam Antar on Green Mountain: Inventory Changes Signal Trouble

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Sam Antar Crazy Eddie CFOSam Antar, former CFO of Crazy Eddie, a massive fraud in the 1980s, has been following Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) for a long time. He has pointed out red flags of fraud over and over, and the current problem is with the level of inventory. Sam has noted that the inventory of Green Mountain has grown to “toxic levels,” even when the company was beating revenue and earnings targets.

Here’s a recent interview in which Sam details the inventory issue at Green Mountain, along with a few other criticisms of management.

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Green Mountain Coffee: Accounting Irregularities and Other Concerns

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gmcr green mountain coffee roastersA couple of weeks ago, David Einhorn bashed Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (NASDAQ:GMCR) in a 110-slide presentation called “GAAP-uccino” at the Value Investing Conference, sending the company’s shares down. The stock opened at $91.66, and closed at $82.50 the day of his presentation. Over the next two weeks, the stock closed as low as $61.59, with the stock ending last week at $70.99.

The stock had been hovering between $100 and $110 a share in September, despite warnings by others that Green Mountain has been manipulating numbers and could become the target of a full-blown investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Sam Antar, the former CFO of massive fraud Crazy Eddie, has been critical about Green Mountain for some time. He has been vocal about the company’s disclosures, accounting irregularities, and GAAP violations.

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