Whole Foods CEO Apologizes for Postings

Austin, Texas, Whole Foods Market announced Tuesday that its board of directors has formed a special committee to investigate CEO John Mackey's postings regarding Wild Oats on the Yahoo! financial message boards.

Whole Foods also released the following statement from Mackey: "I sincerely apologize to all Whole Foods Market stakeholders for my error in judgment in anonymously participating on online financial message boards. I am very sorry and I ask our stakeholders to please forgive me."

Earlier this week, on the Whole Foods Web site, Mackey confirmed that he did submit a number of postings to the Yahoo! financial bulletin boards regarding Whole Foods and Wild Oats under the name "Rahodeb." He added that the comments he made did not always reflect his personal views and that he was merely playing "devil's advocate," in order to stir up discussion on the topic.