Ready to Rumble: Wild Oats and Whole Foods

Howdy from Pamela R. in Austin!

The media push leading up tomorrow's hearing to decide whether Whole Foods will be able to buy Wild Oats has been pretty strong here in Austin.

The American-Statesman seems to be quite a cheerleader for hometown hero John Mackey and his fortress of specialty grocery down at 6th and Lamar.

The A1 centerpiece on Sunday (here) and its corresponding Web video (here) play like a lifetime achievement award nomination, but do give the rest of us a little insight into Mackey's character. It sounds like, if the people cited in these stories have any pull, Whole Foods would stand by its man, if the SEC doesn't kick him out itself.

Not everyone would be happy about it.

According to a Wall Street Journal article, a major shareholder in Whole Foods would like to see Mackey out to (organic, I'm sure) pasture.

I pulled a little exerpt from the article:

CtW Investment Group, a branch of Change to Win, a coalition of labor unions, wrote a letter Wednesday to John B. Elstrott Jr., the lead independent director at Whole Foods, urging the board to immediately name an independent chairman "who can quickly establish credibility with regulatory authorities and shareholders."

Union pension funds affiliated with CtW own some 900,000 shares of Whole Foods, according to the letter. That's less than 1% of the Austin, Texas-based company's outstanding shares.

I also thought it was interesting that, on the same day the American-Statesman ran the Mackey profile, the centerpiece story on its Business Section front was this:

Whole Foods says Trader Joe's is top competitor

In the story, it mentions a petition to bring Trader Joe's to Austin -- it has more than 2,000 signatures already.

We'll see what happens. The District Court hearing to decide whether or not the FTC will get its permanent injunction starts tomorrow and is scheduled to finish on Wednesday.

Hey Tom -- How about a "Do you think the Whole Foods deal will go through?" poll?

We'll see, but at this point, who knows?