Petit posted a “short selling commentary” on the MiMedx website in 2017 where he tried to refute the short seller allegations. In those commentaries he called out Mark Cohodes, one of the most famous short sellers on Wall Street.
In fact, however, Cohodes had never said a word about MiMedx.
So, the famous short seller started to investigate MiMedX. Today, he is probably the most virulent short seller against both CEO Petit and the company.
Here’s how Cohodes characterizes his animus toward Parker (Pete) Petit and MiMedx on a video he posted on YouTube:
“Parker, I’m a 57-year-old man. You decide to drag me into this by mentioning me on your website when I didn’t know who the hell you were or what your company did. But I didn’t appreciate it. And there is no greater motivation in my life than disrespect….You then accused me of being in a wolf pack or a cabal. I don’t operate with a wolf pack or a cabal. A wolf pack or a cabal would never want me. I am focused on exposing this. I am in discussions and have forwarded this (the information he developed) to regulators and will turn over information to the independent investigators, criminal and regulatory authorities as long as sources are protected because MiMedx has a history and a process of ruining people’s lives. I’m agitated, I’m focused and I will not stop.”
For Mark Cohodes this campaign against Pete Petit and MiMedx is personal.
Here’s a link to Mark Cohodes’s YouTube commentary about Petit and MiMedx.
Cohodes is claiming that MiMedx’s revenues are overstated by 70% and that the company had paid kickbacks to doctors out of selling, general and administrative expenses.
Cohodes maintains that he would never have gotten involved in this fight were it not for Petit’s pre-emptive attack against him.
At this past JP Morgan healthcare conference, Cohodes showed up and confronted Petit in front of a room full of institutional investors.
It’s important to note that much of the short seller allegations come from a three-year-old litigation between two former sales reps and MiMedx. The former reps are claiming that at the end of each quarter MiMedx sent its products to VA hospitals where MiMedx’s sales reps control the inventory and, the lawsuits allege, MiMedx parked millions of dollars of product and claimed that they were sales. Channel stuffing, in other words.
MiMedx argues that it conducted an internal audit back when those allegations first surfaced and found that they had no merit. MiMedx even claimed that one of those sales reps retracted his allegations.
Then, last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that MiMedx had made payments to some 20 different doctors.
