{"id":1552,"date":"2008-06-02T07:57:47","date_gmt":"2008-06-02T12:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sequence-inc.com\/fraudfiles\/?p=1552"},"modified":"2012-03-02T14:52:46","modified_gmt":"2012-03-02T20:52:46","slug":"overstockcom-is-doing-better-if-ebitda-is-worse-than-they-reported","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/overstockcom-is-doing-better-if-ebitda-is-worse-than-they-reported\/","title":{"rendered":"Overstock.com is Doing Better if EBITDA is Worse Than They Reported?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This level of logic from the supporters of Patrick Byrne and his supporters is pathetic. Sam Antar has brought up the issue of Overstock.com&#8217;s (NASDAQ:OSTK) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sequence-inc.com\/fraudfiles\/2008\/05\/28\/overstockcom-materially-overstates-ebitda\/\">violation of SEC regulations in reporting EBITDA<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The result of that improper reporting? EBITDA is materially overstated by Overstock.com and the company&#8217;s financial results look better than they really are. (Stock price manipulation, anyone?)<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>And here&#8217;s how the numbers worked out:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Overstock phony EBITDA Q1 2007: ($8,269,000)<br \/>\nCorrected EBITDA Q1 2007: ($13,573,000)<\/p>\n<p>Overstatemenet Q1 2007: $5,304,000<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Overstock phony EBITDA Q1 2008: $3,524,000<br \/>\nCorrected EBITDA Q1 2008: $2,185,000<\/p>\n<p>Overstatement Q2 2008: $1,339,000<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In my opinion, overstatements like this are material, and Overstock.com is violating SEC rules by reporting these phony numbers.<\/p>\n<p>But to the Byrne\/Overstock, supporters, these numbers are <strong>actually good<\/strong>! How can that be? Well using the phony numbers, Overstock improved in 2008 by $11.8 million. Using the corrected numbers, Overstock improved in 2008 by $15.8 million. Therefore, Sam&#8217;s analysis actually <strong>helps<\/strong> Overstock.<\/p>\n<p>Are they kidding? I don&#8217;t think so. Somehow the idea that numbers were materially overstated, and the corrected numbers are materially lower&#8230; is now a good thing.<\/p>\n<p>Seriously, if you have to twist the logic so much that some &#8220;improvement in EBITDA&#8221; is your focus rather than the fact that Overstock and its auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers reported fraudulent numbers that materially overstated EBITDA, you don&#8217;t have much of a case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This level of logic from the supporters of Patrick Byrne and his supporters is pathetic. Sam Antar has brought up the issue of Overstock.com&#8217;s (NASDAQ:OSTK) violation of SEC regulations in reporting EBITDA. The result of that improper reporting? EBITDA is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16,827],"tags":[1113,915,1532],"class_list":["post-1552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-auditing-regulations","category-public-companies","tag-ebitda","tag-overstock","tag-sec-regulations"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Z0e-p2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}