Bill Ackman and Pershing Square Keep Up Fight Against Herbalife

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By Jon C. Ogg Updated Published

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Bill Ackman may have seen Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE: HLF) rise more than handily after the initial tank after his short sale position was disclosed, but his Pershing Square is not letting up on his short-selling campaign against what he thinks is a pyramid scheme. At the Facts About Herbalife, the landing page even states:

“[T]he organization is deemed a pyramid scheme if the participants obtain their monetary benefits primarily from recruitment rather than the sale of goods and services to consumers”
— Dr. Peter J. Vander Nat, senior economist at the FTC, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Vol 21-1, 139-151, (2002)

Today the company has issued its 13-page Executive Summary of the Ira Sohn Presentation. The summary is titled “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” The summary says Herbalife is a pyramid scheme as its distributors earn more than ten-times as much from recruiting as they do selling their overpriced products to bona fide retail customers. The rest of the summary is here.

Herbalife shares closed up almost 5% in Tuesday trading and the 52-week trading range is $24.24 to $73.00. This stock closed out 2012 at $32.94, but shares were around $42.50 on December 18 (a day before the short selling position was disclosed) and the stock hit its yearly low of $24.24 on December 24.

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About the Author Jon C. Ogg →

Jon Ogg has been a financial news analyst since 1997. Mr. Ogg set up one of the first audio squawk box services for traders called TTN, which he sold in 2003. He has previously worked as a licensed broker to some of the top U.S. and E.U. financial institutions, managed capital, and has raised private capital at the seed and venture stage. He has lived in Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as New York and Chicago, and he now lives in Houston, Texas. Jon received a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance at University of Houston in 1992. www.247wallst.com.

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