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On August 14th, Skechers USA, Inc. (NASDAQ: SKX) made public its offer to acquire Heelys, Inc. (NASDAQ: HLYS) at a price of $5.25 per share. At the time I wrote that the offer seemed low, and Heelys' management seems to agree, issuing a press release stating that "The Board believes the $5.25 offering price does not reflect the value of Heelys and that entering into discussions with Skechers based on their unsolicited proposal is premature at this time."

Today Skechers shot back with its own press release, with chairman and CEO Robert Greenberg stating that "We are particularly disappointed that, after repeated contacts over several months, Heelys will not agree even to discussions or provide us with an opportunity to conduct due diligence. . . We are very interested in continuing our dialogue and, as discussed in Skechers' letter of August 13, we may also be prepared to refine our proposal if additional value can be identified during the due diligence."

So why won't Heelys at least engage in discussions, given that Skechers is indicating that it might raise its bid? This looks like a replay of the Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) - Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) takeover battle on a much smaller scale, with Heelys' brass not inclined to talk about a deal, even if it is in the best interests of shareholders.

If Skechers gets bored with the slow pace of negotiations and walks away, Heelys will have some splainin' to do. Given that the company went public at over $30 per share and now sits at $5.25, it's pretty clear that the management team doesn't know enough about shareholder value to reject a takeover offer without further discussions.

Biovail (NYSE: BVF), a poster child for accounting fraud and the "blame it on short sellers!" diversion strategy, has hired yet another chief financial officer, announcing that Peggy Mulligan will take over for interim finance chief Adrian A. De Saldanha, who had held the position since March.

In March, Biovail paid $10 million to the SEC to settle charges related to improper accounting and false and misleading statements. Former CFOs Brian Crombie and Kenneth G. Howling were implicated in that mess. So Ms. Mulligan has a tough act to follow: she'll have to produce results legally!

Shares of Biovail are trading near their lowest price of this millennium, understandable given that phony accounting and vast conspiracy theories are no longer there to prop up the stock price.

Biovail plans to spend more than $600 million on research and development over the next five years, in an effort to create real shareholder value.

Third Point Management fund manager Daniel Loeb told his investors last night the firm is the target of a formal investigation being conducted by the Securities & Exchange Commission. According to Loeb, the subject of the investigation is his communications with other hedge funds.

The investigation appears to be an outgrowth of a conspiracy theory that a cadre of hedge funds engaged in nefarious campaigns of rumor-mongering and aggressive short-selling aimed at bringing down companies like Bear Stearns. The fact that the companies crying foul have lost billions and suffered from serious transparency problems is deemed irrelevant; bad management doesn't destroy companies, short sellers do, according to this line of thinking.

Loeb wrote that questions about the fund's communications were first raised during a routine audit last year, but added that its lawyers had said that such communications were legal under federal securities laws.

Steve & Barry's, the college town clothier known for selling reasonably good quality clothing for under $10, will live to fight another day.

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that Bay Harbour Management LC will purchase the company's assets out of bankruptcy for $168 million, and has been negotiating "around the clock" to secure lease concessions from landlord, with the goal of keeping about 150 of the company's 276 stores operating.

"Value is king today," Bay Harbour managing principal Douglas Teitlebaum told the Journal. "The customer still wants to shop but they must get value, and this company offers better value than I've seen anywhere."

I think he's absolutely right. The company expanded far too aggressively, but its same store sales growth was strong, and its value proposition appears to resonate strongly with consumers. The continued operation of the stores will be a victory for college students all over the country who rely on the chain to dress well on a budget.

The Financial Times reports that Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) held "secret talks" to sell a stake of up to 50% in itself to investors in China and/or South Korea during the first week of August, but failed to reach any deal. The company held talks with Korea Development Bank and China's Citic Securities at its Times Square headquarters.

Of course all this happened while the company told everyone that everything was fine and blasted short sellers for raising questions about its balance sheet. And get this: back in June the company was buying back stock at a far higher valuation than it will now be able to raise capital at: that's just bad management.

The company's effort to sell a 50% stake just a few weeks ago does not bode well for the company's upcoming earnings report and neither does the fact that it was unable to reach any deal with the foreign investors.

"If people think they (Lehman) are heading toward bankruptcy, nobody will want to do business with them or make them new loans. That's Fuld's biggest problem," NYU economist Richard Sylla told The Associated Press.

But Lehman's credibility is so shot from the uncertainty and lack of forthrightness that it will likely have a hard time convincing anyone to trust it.

Last month I wrote about the Clown Prince of Nepotism Donald Trump Jr.'s grandiose announcement of plans to raise $1 billion to invest in India's booming real estate market.

Now BusinessWeek's HotProperty column is expressing some skepticism. After noting that Trump got the idea back in November after speaking at a real estate conference in Mumbai, Prashant Gopal notes that "The market has changed quite a bit since then. Inflation and interest rates are climbing and shares of Indian builders, home price appreciation, and demand for land are slowing. [...] Of course, this might be a good time to jump in and pick up land at distressed-sale prices. But he will be competing against established players."

Still: the fact that Trump Jr. appears to have struck upon this idea at the height of the market is indicative of something.

But I wouldn't worry too much: the "announcement" of a $1 billion fund struck me as a more of grandiose publicity ploy/plea for credibility from a reality TV bit-player than a ground floor opportunity to get in with real estate development's next big star. I'll believe otherwise when Trump announces he's raised the money, and I won't be holding my breath.

SEC Chairman Chris Cox, who has been off battling the imaginary dragon of naked short selling as actual securities fraud continues to be as easy as ever to get away with, has a message for you about the recently-expired naked-short selling rule.

He said that failures to deliver in the 19 financial stocks affected "were reduced substantially" and added that "It was a very effective order from that standpoint." Fair enough. But then he dropped this bomb shell: "We expected and intended to have no impact whatsoever on the direction of prices. That's not the purpose of regulations."

Uh-oh. That takes quite a bit of the wind out of the sails of the naked shore-selling conspiracy theorists -- if naked short selling was an evil scheme driving down share prices, then wouldn't regulation designed to curb it be expected to impact the direction of share prices? That statement from Mr. Cox would seem to be an admission that failures to deliver are a procedural issue, not some conspiracy to drive down stocks involving crooked journalists and a "sith lord" as Overstock (NASDAQ: OSTK) CEO Patrick Byrne infamously suggested.

For a summary of the commentary on this mess, check out this post from Gary Weiss.

In a move intended to make SEC filings more user-friendly for investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission introduced the "successor to the agency's 1980s-era EDGAR database, which will give investors far faster and easier access to key financial information about public companies and mutual funds."

The IDEA behind the Interactive Data Electronic Applications system is to make it so that investors can compare data between multiple SEC filings more easily, without having to open up new tabs.

While it's certainly a step in the right direction for investor-friendliness, it's actually bad news for sophisticated investors: the people who find undervalued stocks by seeking out mispricings caused by investors who don't analyze/understand the businesses they're looking at.

Look at what's happened in the foreclosure market: savvy investors used to be able to make million there but, as online databases have made searches of distressed properties possible in seconds, the deals aren't what they used to be.

As new rules and disclosures increase, so will market efficiency -- that's good for the market but bad for some of its participants.

In a move that the company wisely decided not to announce via a press release to investors, eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) has lowered the listing fee for fixed-price items on its site to 35 cents, down from as high as $4, depending on the price. The listing duration will also jump from 7 days to 30; those changes will be at least partially offset by an increase in the commission on sold items but eBay did not break down any details on that.

According (subscription required) to The Wall Street Journal, "The company is playing catch-up to other Web sites that have focused on fixed-price sales."

That may be true for now but the fact that eBay feels a need to court that market with aggressive price cuts indicates that the company recognizes the many sellers are opting for that over its own flagship auction business. Almost since inception, eBay has miraculously managed to avoid a price battle with competitors, and has been able to steadily increase its fees while much-hyped and well-funded imitators like Auction Universe fell by the wayside. It may be that sites like Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) are finally posing a serious threat.

It also may be that eBay is just messing with people's minds. Back in February when eBay announced its last "fee cut", sellers protested, alleging that the increase in the commission more than offset the decrease and accused eBay of fuzzy math.

Details of the new fee structure will tell us whether eBay is desperate of just manipulative.

TJX Companies (NYSE: TJX) has been one of the few bright spots in retail of late. As the parent company of TJMaxx and Marshall's. TJX has benefited from bargain-hungry consumers hell-bent on avoiding retail prices.

In a press release issued Tuesday afternoon, TJX announced that it was selling its Bob's Stores chain, which it acquired in December of 2003. In its most recent 10-K, TJX described Bob's as a "value-oriented, branded apparel chain based in the Northeastern United States that offers casual, family apparel. Bob's Stores' target customer demographic spans the moderate-to upper-middle income bracket." The chain consists of 34 stores.

The chain expects to record a charge of $15 million (3 cents per share) on the sale, and expects net cash proceeds of $23 million. The buyers are private equity firms Versa Capital Management and Crystal Capital.

Citigroup analyst Kimberly Greenberger told investors that "TJX's sale of Bob's will help (management) maintain focus on its core off-price business model as Bob's was the only non-off-price division in TJX's portfolio of brands and was not a strategic fit in our view."

Perhaps: but given the lack of investor appetite for retail chains in the current environment, and the state of the credit markets, TJX must have really wanted to get rid of Bob's: now! You just don't see a lot of retailers divesting bad acquisitions to focus on "core strengths" right now.

But given the tremendous performance TJX has shown of late, it's hard to argue with anything its management does.

AC/DC made its name as one of the pioneers of hard rock and heavy metal, but the band's latest gig has a decidedly corporate ring to it: the band's new album, Black Ice, will be available exclusively (subscription required) at Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT)

It's the band's first album of new material in eight years, and will be debut on October 20th at the "everyday low price" of $11.88. AC/DC's music has never been available on iTunes.

Classic rock bands including The Eagles and Journey have made albums to be sold exclusively at Wal-Mart and, while it doesn't exactly have iTunes quaking it in its boots, it is one gimmick that's keeping CD's relevant for at least a little while longer.

Artistically, it's more than a little bit pathetic to see bands that used to be so cutting-edge hocking their wares through an exclusive arrangement with the world's largest retailer.

It's a good thing The Beatles broke up so its rabid fans wouldn't have to endure stuff like this.

Contrary to recent media speculation, leading Indian SUV-maker Mahindra & Mahindra is not interested in acquiring the Hummer brand that General Motors (NYSE: GM) is desperately trying to unload.

Managing director Anand Mahindra told reporters on Monday that his company is not interested in the Hummer, which leads us to one conclusion: Mahindra & Mahindra is not stupid.

In a related story, Reuters is reporting that China's Hunan Changfeng Motor Co. had preliminary talks with GM about acquiring the brand, but it also backed out pretty quickly.

This is another setback for General Motors, but it's not surprising: in addition to being hugely uneconomical in the face of high gas prices, the Hummer is also something of an international symbol of environmental destruction, and masculine posturing at its lowest ebb, as evidenced by this crude bumper sticker.

I'll be fascinated to see who ends up buying Hummer, if anyone. Given the state of the economy, the credit markets, and gas prices, it wouldn't be surprising to see GM forced to keep it.

It was a publicity nightmare for the Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS): Tinkerbell, Snow White, Pinocchio, and Minnie Mouse being handcuffed and hauled away from Disneyland in a police van.

32 costumed protesters were arrested for failing to obey a police order and traffic violations on Thursday. The protest was part of a labor dispute involving 2,300 workers at Disney's hotels: the Paradise Pier, the Grand Californian and the Disneyland Hotel.

The union's contract expired in February, and workers complain that the new offer from Disney management would make health care unaffordable and, according to the president of Unite Here Local 681, workers are comparable local hotels make $2-3 an hour more. You can read the details of the dispute here.

I can't imagine that stuff like this is good for traffic at Disneyland: imagine showing up for a day of fun rides with your family, only to have your 4-year old ask why Mickey and Goofy are being hauled off in handcuffs!

A Disney spokesman told the USA Today that "Publicity stunts are not productive and are extremely disruptive to the resort district."

But won't disrupting the resort district "encourage" Disney to meet its workers' demands? If so, that sounds productive to me!

With the share prices of most of the financials in the toilet, and hundreds of billions in writedowns done and hundreds of billions more to come, UBS has laid out plans for a break-up, the question is being raised about other financial conglomaterates, most notably Citigroup: does the business model of a huge banking conglomerate that handles all aspects of commerce make sense?

From a risk management, it doesn't appear to -- and that was one of the main arguments put forth by consolidation evangelists like Sandy Weil.

The current mess appears to be demonstrating what many skeptical observers have suggested -- and studies have demonstrated -- for decades: mergers and acquisitions and other methods of corporate deckchair arrangements don't add value. In the end, the whole is the sum of the parts.

But that raises the question: why break them up? If stringing them together into a conglomerate didn't change anything, is there any reason to think that breaking up will change anything? I doubt it.

The bottom line is that all the mergers and acquisitions and spin-offs and break-ups are just a distraction from the real business.

One of the most common rebuttals to the naked short selling conspiracy theories is this: Name one company that has been hurt by naked short selling.

In a July 22nd interview with Fox Business, Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) CEO Patrick Byrne gave an example: Force Protection (NASDAQ: FRPT). "Makes vehicles for soldiers in Iraq. . . stock was at $25, got naked shorted down to $4, canceled the secondary. . . Some soldiers are going to die in Iraq this week because some hedge fund guys need a new Ferrari."

Oops. On August 14th, Force Protection dropped some bad news on its shareholders. In addition to having missed the deadline for filing its 10-K, the NASDAQ is now threatening to de-list Force Protection's stock for failing to file its 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2008. This comes after the company changed auditors and, back in March, disclosed "certain material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting."

And that is, according to a message Patrick Byrne left on a message board (View the post for a video of the interview) the "easiest way to explain this problem to Congressmen, Senators, and most Americans."

Note to Byrne: I, and I suspect many others, will be more convinced when a company without serious accounting/internal controls problems and/or a failed business model complains about naked short selling. So far we haven't heard anything like that.