The ex-CEO of Overstock, Patrick Byrne, has recently decided to leave the company. This happened a while ago, though, so you probably know about that. It was recently revealed, however, that his decision had nothing to do with the ongoing investigation that the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is doing to the company.
Jonathan Johnson, the current interim CEO, affirmed recently that the investigation of the SEC is basically dormant this year. According to him, the investigation seems to be pretty much stopped since December 2018, so it had no effect on Byrne’s decision to leave.
The reason for that, Johnson affirmed, is that Overstock complied with all the requirements of information and spent “a king’s ransom” in order to get the necessary information for the SEC.
Johnson was one of the people who met with SEC executives last year and he was in charge of convincing them that nothing was wrong with the company. So far, it seems that he was at least somewhat successful.
At the moment, the interim CEO believes that the investigation is basically dead because the SEC deemed that there was nothing worthy of finding. However, as the SEC has not talked about the matter nor stated that Overstock was innocent, the investigation is considered to be still pending.
This investigation, which was started back in 2017, made the shares of the company decline a lot in price. At the time, it was seen as bad news, but the company seems to have handled it pretty well. Byrne’s withdrawal’s real motive, however, continues to be a mystery at the time of this report.
