4:57: Everybody ready to do this? We exchanged an email with Sam Antar a little bit ago and he says he never gets on the call so we know he’s listening along. Sam, can’t you get one of those things that will disguise your voice and that makes it sound like your voicebox was removed?
5:00: Slides are working but nothing but Mozart. These Salt Lake City people need to get their act together.
5:02: Jonathan Johnson in the hizzous! Dr. Patrick is in attendance and Steve Chestnut. Yeah, that 10-K was two weeks late, Johnnie. You should probably mention that. Non-GAAP financial measures? You mean the whole 10-K? We kid, we kid.
5:03: Chestnut gets on and he name drops KPMG. Thanks Klynveldians for making this a virtually painless process. Chesty agrees with Patsy’s sentiments that he’s sorry for the delay but appreciates your patience throughout this whole mess.
Oh boy. Accountants getting thrown under the bus. They’re hiring new people though. Ones that have appropriate training in debits and credits. Hell, they’ll throw in some internal audit people too. Progress is being made, make no mistake.
5:07: Patrick Byrne is up! He’s stoked to be here. Going through the numbers and Patsy mentions that Johnnie Johnson never sounds bored while going over the minutiae. “ALL IS GOOD!” Stalling…Skips an entire slide for some reason (probably not important). Pat doesn’t know what the future holds. That’s deep man. He’ll stop talking about the future now. You know who Patrick cares about? The consumers! He’s passing savings on to you, the American people and Overstock shoppers.
5:11: This thing is generating cash, sayeth Chestnut. Jesus, we are cruising through these slides. Think he’s skipping over anything? An investment banker told Patsy that “profit is noble.” He thinks its Chinese or something. Definitely not Nietzsche. Pat likes LL Bean, btw. Johnnie Johnson is back on. Just because LL Bean is a great company doesn’t mean OSTK isn’t going to try like hell to be numero uno in customer satisfaction.
Okay, these guys really like LL Bean. Patrick is talking about duck boots and grandpas now. Really profound stuff here. Did they mention they were above Amazon, Zappos, etc?
5:15: No reason to read slide 13…moving along, moving along. Patrick is reminiscing about someone at Allen & Co. who said something smart at one time in the past. Not really going anywhere…Yes. Please keep up the abrupt stops and starts. Johnnie do you want to chime in? Pat says they have tight expense controls. This must be the one area of the company where controls are just a-okay. $46 million in cash flow is nothing to sneeze at people. Patrick still doesn’t want to talk about the future.
5:19: Questions. Matt Schindler/BofA (sorry if I butchered the spelling): nice revenue number guys. How’d you do it? Great question, sayeth Patrick. Patrick can’t believe this didn’t happen three years ago but hey, whatever. ’09 wasn’t so hot compared to other years because you know, it pretty much sucked for everybody.
What about gross margin? Patsy said that 20% gross margin was too high and was going to give it back to customers? Now it’s 17% WTF? Are you doing customers a favor or did you get hammered by the seasonal whathaveyou? Patsy says that OSTK wants to be cheaper than everybody in the entire universe, so hell yeah, they’re passing it on to the consumer.
5:26: WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT THE FUTURE! Do you know what the future holds? We sure as hell don’t but chances are it involves the SEC so we’re not going there. END. OF. STORY.
The book of this company will be written one day and chapter one will be human development. Who will write this book? Patrick? Robby Boyd? Floyd Norris? Good God, when is this BofA guy’s turn over? One final question: Q1 is the past so that’s technically not the future so how is it??
Patrick says that you may have heard that he was in some hot water, so Q1 actually is the future, thankyouverymuch. Next question.
5:30: Patrick’s fraternity brother is next up and they compliment each other for being such swell guys. Patrick especially likes his buddy’s Minnesota accent. Sounds like Johnnie is running the show because Patrick says that he’s the one insisting that Patrick keep his piehole shut about the future.
5:35: Jesus, Marge Gunderson asks another snoozer of a question. Patrick plugs another book that no one has ever heard of called “The Dick” or something.
Marge Gunderson: Any litigation? – Johnnie will handle this. Prime brokers are going down in September of 2011. Byrne can’t help himself and blurts out that the it will be the OJ Simpson trial of the financial world. That’s nice. Murder. The murder of OSTK.
Hey! What about those Q1 earnings?? It’s still TBD but we’re tentatively shooting for late April. KPMG has been burning the midnight oil! Patrick is singing their praises right now. They’re a great crew. Not like the hacks at Grant Thornton. Herculean effort KPMG. Props. Tons of props. Nice job team. No plans for you to be fired.
5:42: Tom O’Halloran from an bank I’ve never heard of. Byrne claims that the OSTK is part of the American psyche now. Coca-Cola, Baseball, and Overstock.com. Steve Chestnut number drops $900 million in revenues. That’s almost a billion! But we’re still kind of small, we’re not delusional. Johnnie knows that Americans see OSTK as a real alternative for stretching their nickel.
Patrick is now talking macro-econ now and we’re totally disinterested. Btw, did you notice that OSTK is the only discounter on the customer satisfaction survey?
5:48: Talking inventory…What about cash levels? You’ve got about $140 mil in cash. Is that enough? What do you like to see in the future?
Patrick says if working capital drops $30 mil they’re in deep shit. Since this involves the future, Johnnie Johnson takes over and Patrick shuts his trap.
5:51: A emailed question from fellow named Nick whose last name is being withheld to protect him. Weird. He wants to know about patent infringements. Jesus, are Sam’s questions going to get asked or not? The Company will fight these tooth and nail. Johnnie will fight these suits dammit. No settlements. It’s about principle, after all.
Michal Ungai (sp?) is up. Something about future depreciation. Patrick asks Johnnie for permission to answer the question, so it must be serious. Are we talking about this?…stand by…If you’re assuming what we are, then you’re good to go.
5:58: Johnnie says time is up so everybody beat it. Patrick says KPMG needs to get the Q1 done and then they can go on vacay. That’s reassuring.