Menu Pet CFO Sold About Half His Stock Less Than Month Before Recall
Can this Menu pet mess smell worse? I don’t think so!
Now we see that the CFO dumped half his stock while Menu Pet was holding back the fact that they knew they had tainted products on the market. Hmmm. This sure looks like he knew the defacatory material would be hitting a rotating blade! In other words, this looks like clear evidence that the Menu Pet management KNEW they were sitting on a time bomb, one that was already injuring and killing thousands of pets!
Coincidence? I don’t think so!
Should anyone believe ANYTHING Weins or any of the Menu Pet managers say? Of course not! They prove time and time again they are untrustworthy, greedy and seem to have less concern for living creatures than the Chinese officials who authorized the dog purges!
No Mr. Weins, this insider trade smells worse than a lion house in mid summer!
Maybe its time to take a very hard look at ALL of the Menu Pet managers’ portfolios. I wonder if any of them have stock or are otherwise making money off importing wheat gluten from China? I’d sure like to know!
How about this? If Wiens wants to prove it was just a coincidence, how about he donate the whole value of the stocks sold AND NOT take a tax write-off for it? He could donate it to one of the rescue groups who have been hit by this recall or some other set of groups helping affected pets.
Thanks to Margaret Young for meowing in this article from The Globeandmall.com.
Pet food insider sold shares before recall
CFO calls sale a ‘coincidence’
KEITH MCARTHURThe chief financial officer of Menu Foods Income Fund says it’s a “horrible coincidence” that he sold nearly half his units in the troubled pet food maker less than three weeks before a massive recall of tainted pet food.
Insider trading reports show that Mark Wiens sold 14,000 units for $102,900 on Feb. 26 and Feb. 27. Those shares would be worth $62,440 today, based on yesterday’s close of $4.46 a unit.
That represented 45 per cent of Mr. Wiens’s units. After the sale, he still owned 17,193 units and options to purchase 101,812 units, according to insider trading reports.“It’s a horrible coincidence, yes . . .” Mr. Wiens said yesterday.
“I hold myself to the highest ethical and moral standards possible. I wouldn’t do anything to imperil the high governance standards that I demand of myself or anybody in the company.”
Mr. Wiens said the first reports of illnesses and deaths related to Menu Foods products came in to the company’s toll-free customer relations line in late February.
But he said he did not hear of any possible problem with the company’s products until early March.
On March 16, the Streetsville, Ont., pet food maker recalled 60 million containers of cat and dog food.
“In terms of process, during any given year, we get consumer complaints all the time and it becomes matter of course for our technical people, so it’s not something that necessarily gets flagged right to the top on an ongoing basis,” Mr. Wiens said.
Menu Foods president and chief executive Paul Henderson has previously said Menu Foods ended its relationship with its Chinese supplier of wheat gluten on March 6.
By that date, it was clear “something was wrong” with some of the company’s products, Mr. Henderson said at a press conference on March 30. In the first week in March, animals in routine taste tests of the company’s “cuts and gravy” products began showing symptoms of kidney failure.
Mr. Wiens said he has not been approached by the Ontario Securities Commission or any other regulators about the timing of his unit sales. OSC spokeswoman Wendy Dey said the company routinely reviews insider trading reports, but does not comment on individual cases.
Jay Strosberg, a Windsor, Ont., lawyer who has filed a lawsuit against Menu Foods on behalf of a woman whose six-year-old cat died of kidney failure on Feb. 22, said regulators should look into Mr. Wiens’s trades to see whether the buyers bought at inflated prices.
“At this point in time, we have absolutely no information about what the company knew or when they knew it,” Mr. Strosberg said. “That information would not be disclosed to us until we’re further along in the class action.”
Mr. Wiens said he sold his shares in late February for financial planning purposes. He was prohibited from trading until Feb. 16 because of a blackout period related to the company’s fourth-quarter results, he said.
But when he learned about the trouble with the company’s products, he knew his trades would raise some questions, Mr. Wiens said.
“Certainly there would be questions when you piece all the timing together. I understand that,” Mr. Wiens said.
Follow this link to read the rest of the article.
It’s not much consolation, but if Canadian securities laws regarding insider trading are as strict as the US laws, then there’s finally something about this that could get a Menu Foods officer jail time.
It’s sad that knowingly poisoning hundreds if not thousands of pets isn’t taken as seriously.
Isn’t it a coincident, Mr. Weins, that the prisons are over-crowded with innocent people?
When something like this happens, it’s frightning to think: who can we really trust? The loss of thousands of pets is inexcusable. I shutter to think of the people who eat pet food. The homeless, the poor, maybe when people start to get sick, some attention will be paid to this horrible situation. In most families their pets are the children. This needs to be taken very seriously.
“I hold myself to the highest ethical and moral standards possible.” What gall. The man has no ethics or moral standards.
The bastard should be fined 4 times the money he made from his coincidental stock sales and made to contribute every penny to Dog and Cat rescue groups. AND he should be made to pay for each and every medical bill accrued by pet owners who had the misfortune of feeding their animals his rat poison!
Oh, I believe him when he says, ““I hold myself to the highest ethical and moral standards possible.” Let’s face it, “possible” isn’t going to be very high at all when he’s already slithering lower than a snake’s belly!
Does anyone else notice when reading these articles that there are “tests” mentioned and “test animals” mentioned? So, to confirm that their food is actually killing animals that ate it, they rounded up a bunch of “test” animals (cats and dogs), fed them tainted food, and watched them get sick and die?
They did not believe the reports of sickness and death, they had to re-create it in a lab and they STILL did not have a reason for it, only proof that it was happening.Could they not spend that time and money on testing the chemical analysis of the actual product?
I do not doubt for a second that he knew that there would be a recall and that he could profit from it in the end.
I think he should do jail time. They knew what they were selling to us. At least make them stand trial and let a jury decide their fate. I am sure he is not the only one who did that if it is looked into more. Martha Stewart did time for the very same thing, so should he!
they always say, “follow the money trail”… how’s this for a smoking gun?
Is there any over the counter dry dog food out there that is safe to feed our babies, if so someone please e-mail me and let me know the name of it my Buster is tired of boiled chicken and rice
In response to Donna’s query - I have found that MERRICK’S Brand and DICK VAN PATTEN’s Brand all Natural dry and canned food is best. There are absolutely NO additives or preservatives. It is all made from people grade ingredients; (so good even humans can eat it). I highly recommend these two brands. If Van Patten’s isnt available due to your geographic location, I know that MERRICK’s is sold throughout the United States. Good luck and good health to our furbabies!
Rhon
This isn’t just a smoking gun. It’s a smoking cannon with great fingerprints in red paint and a sales receipt with the purchaser’s name!
Thanks Bob and Pita
Bob and Pita–
and now Dick Van Patten’s Natural Balance is also recalled due to Rice Protein Concentrate added to their food–which was also imported from china, and also contains melamine-
and they claimed that ALL of their ingredients were from the US–so who do we trust? I had used a couple cans of Merrick initially at the beginning of the recall, but then decided I was not going to trust ANY company-so I started making my dog’s food myself, and now Iam really glad that I did–because who knows what will be next.
Donna–
Add some mushed veggies to that chicken and rice, along with some flaxseed oil and a dash of garlic–I bet your Buster would be greatful to have that over any of the dog foods on the market, and he will be safer too. Contact a holistic vet, who will guide you as to what would be a good recipe for your Buster…