WHEN HERBALIFE STARTED (and Almost Ended)

 

How does history judge Mark Hughes and Herbalife? Can it be called a success story?

 

Mark became interested in nutrition after his mother died of an overdose. His mother autopsy showed very high levels of a painkiller in her blood system. It was an unfortunate combination of prescribed substances for weight loss and sedation. This event Hughes frequently noted as the event that encouraged him to establish Herbalife, driven by an almost maniacal desire to solve the problems that had plagued his mother.

 

Hughes became involved in selling several weight-loss products, before developing his own brand – Herbalife – in 1980. A natural-born salesman, the young Hughes started to sell "Slender Now", a weight-loss product made by a small MLM company called Seyforth Laboratories in 1976. He was also introduced to the concept of multi-level marketing, becoming a top-earner. After three years, Seyforth failed, and Hughes began selling exercise equipment and weight-loss products for called a company called Golden Youth, where he also met his first wife, Kathryn Whiting, before teaming with Richard Marconi, a former colleague at Slender Now, to start Herbalife in 1980.

 

In February 1980, a 24-year-old Mark Hughes, founded Los Angeles-based Herbalife International, selling weight loss shakes out of his car trunk. Herbalife began as a protein shake designed to replace two meals-per-day, and lead to weight-loss without the need to exercise. His main product was Formula 1, which at the time came only in vanilla flavor. Hughes began selling his formulas from the trunk of his car, but he soon acquired a warehouse and very quickly it was apparent that the company was experiencing phenomenal growth. Sales was $2 million in its first year, $10 million the next year. 

 

Structured as a direct-selling (MLM) company, Hughes was not shy of making exaggerated claims about his products. From the early days of the company, he surrounded himself with a loyal group of aides. He had known two of them, Rosen and Christopher Pair, at CEDU; Conrad Lee Klein, a longtime Hughes associate at Herbalife, started working for him as outside legal counsel in 1982. Family members also held key posts in Herbalife management, including Hughes’ brother Kirk, three sisters-in-law and a cousin.

 

Herbalife launched in Canada in 1982 as its second market. The same year its revenue reaches $58 million and it installs its first computer system but was already receiving complaints from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about unproven product claims. After modifying some of their formulas to appease the FDA, they were opening for business in the UK by 1984. 

 

1985 Hughes had moved the company to a high-rise tower block in Los Angeles, sales had reached an unbelievable $423million dollars, and Herbalife was listed as the fastest growing private company in America, with a growth rate of more than 100,000%. 

 

Hughes projected a boyish enthusiasm and charisma, his thick Prince Valiant hairstyle was more appropriate to a rock ‘n’ roll star than a corporate executive and his life was like a typical drama of real American soap operas. He was a multimillionaire well before his 30th birthday and he accentuated this buying a $7-million mansion in Bel-Air, from singer Kenny Rogers. Having just divorced his first wife, former "Miss Santa Monica" Kathryn Whiting, he wed former Swedish beauty queen Angela Mack in 1984.

 

Then came 1985, and it was indeed a big year for Herbalife and Mark.

For founder Mark Hughes, his dreams look set to be shattered. Everything he has worked for is coming tumbling down, and the end of Herbalife seems imminent. Hughes started appearing in many places to talk about — and defend – his company, including the legendary Merv Griffin T.V. show. 

 

Determined not to sit back and watch his life’s work disintegrate before his eyes, Hughes had come out fighting. He fought back against the negative allegations, made concessions, he filed counter-law suits against his accusers and against the FDA, charging the agency with "corrupt trial-by-publicity" against the company. But when the situation intensified in 1985, the suit was quietly withdrawn.

 

In March of that year, the California attorney general, state Department of Health and district attorney of Santa Cruz County filed a civil suit against Herbalife. Their allegations: Herbalife was making false medical claims about some of its products and employing an illegal pyramid scheme to market them. Two U.S. congressional panels also launched inquiries into the company.

 

Hughes was not going to let his company go down without a fight and he fought like a wolf. Herbalife was more than just a business to him, it was a labour of love, and had been a monumental success for him. It was a vehicle for him to exorcise the demons of his past, and he would fight tooth and nail to defend it. Hughes went on the offensive. He dismissed some of the allegations as false and litigious, others he conceded and took active steps to remedy, the pyramid structure of Herbalife was compared favourably to respected MLM companies Amway and Mary Kay. 

 

Hughes even testified at a US Senate hearing where he boldly had this to say about experts who were claiming Herbalife’s products were unsafe:

 

“I think if they’re so expert in weight-loss, why were they so fat yesterday?” (Video 7:40 min)

 

He may not have been politically correct, but he makes a good poind (and besides his bold quote went down in history as a turning point in the Herbalife story). 

 

In 1986, Herbalife, while admitting no wrongdoing, settled with California by paying $850,000 in fines and agreeing to take some products off the market. At the time, the California attorney general, John Van De Kamp, was quoted in The Wall Street Journal as saying it was the ''largest settlement ever attained from a health products company.''

 

Herbalife’s growth had been quick, but perhaps too quick. 1985 was a nightmare year for the company, as things began to catch up with them. With success comes visibility, and with visibility comes responsibility. Herbalife was now firmly on the radar of the government and other regulatory agencies, and these agencies didn’t like what they were seeing. Many of Hughes’ products were seriously under-researched, it was alleged, and many of the claims made on behalf of the products were either misleading or downright untrue.

 

Still, congressional controversy and lawsuits aside, Herbalife continued its meteoric rise. By the time of Hughes death, the company’s financial and operational future had been secured. But the legacy of 1985 lived on, and to this day Herbalife still struggle to shake off the bad image created at this time.

The 90's kick in and the glamour and turmoil for Huges continues...

 

To make up for the sales the company lost in the States as a result of the negative publicity, Herbalife launched an aggressive expansion program and in between 1987 and 1990, it opened operations in New Zealand, France, Spain, Germany, Israel and Mexico. It went public on the American Electronic Stock Exchange, NASDAQ and the same year, Jim Rohn, a well-known business philosopher and motivational speaker, teamed up with Mark and Herbalife would rapidly expand internationally, adding multiple countries every year.

 

Hughes’ counter-attack must have worked, because Herbalife recovered and continued to grow, contrary to popular predictions. But mud sticks, and for the rest of Hughes’ life he would continue to spur controversy everywhere he went, as he faced allegations of alcoholism and drug abuse, and the integrity of Herbalife continued to come under scrutiny. Personally, Hughes had suffered another upheaval as his second marriage ended after about a year. According to several sources, Angela had a substance-abuse problem that her husband could not tolerate. Hughes got through his second divorce and Angela would later die allegedly of  alcohol-related illness.

 

Mark was then set to marrying Suzan Schroder, a former Miss Hawaiian Tropics and reporter, in September 1987. She was quite a barbie doll with long blond hair. However, they did threw themselves into some charitable endeavors and she was the most glamorous of escorts for Mark.

 

In December 1991, Hughes' and his third wife, Suzan Hughes, had a son, Alexander "Alex" Reynolds Hughes and the new father made sure they would not be cramped for space, spending $20 million to acquire Grayhall, a historic, 22,000-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion designed to resemble a Tirolean castle.

 

In 1994 Hughes started a project called Herbalife Family Foundation (HFF), creating partnerships with charities to help meet the nutritional needs of children at risk and at the same time establishing special funding to help organizations in assisting victims of natural disasters like tsunamis, earthquakes and hurricanes.

 

In December 1994, another tragedy--the death of Mark’s brother Guy Hartman at age 37, after years of alcohol abuse.

 

In May 1995, the organization D.A.R.E. America honored the couple with its “Future of America Award,” praising Mark and Suzan's commitment to “teaching our kids how to say no to drugs.” Nevertheless, their marriage was crumbling. And less than 18 months later, Mark was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, with almost three times the legal limit, suggesting he was touched with the same curse as his late passing brother and mother, needles to point that he was used to consume a lot to develop that level of tolerance to alcohol. For Herbalife, so dependent on Hughes, because the distributors so admired him and with Herbalife’s glory days long past, shareholders would not have welcomed this news either. Although sales nearly doubled between 1994 and 1998, net profits increased only 5%. The pressure on Hughes to maintain his healthy image was “dramatic,” 

 

In September 1997, Suzan Hughes filed for divorce after 10 years of marriage. During that same year, Hughes bought at an auction for just $ 100,000 one of America's most expensive properties, estimated to be $ 8 million in value, and owned by legendary TV presenter Merv Griffin.

 

In 1998, Hughes visited Rio de Janeiro. While there, he discovered an orphanage that required extensive repair. There was no way he could ignore such tremendous need, so he provided funds to renovate the building. It became known as Casa Herbalife and the company continues to support it even today. 

 

On Valentine's Day 1999, Hughes married Darcy Lynn LaPier another former Miss Hawaiian Tropics with two children and a history of wealthy husbands, including actor Jean-Claude Van Damme. He and Darcy then  moved into the peach-colored Malibu villa that they purchased in December 1999.

 

By the late 90’s, Herbalife was already an MLM giant present in dozens of countries and almost every continent on the planet. But Mark Hughes wasn’t too happy with how Herbalife was being treated by Wall Street. For the last couple years of his life, he tried (unsuccessfully) to take his company private again by buying up shares he felt were being undervalued. This caused a lot of physical and emotional stress for Hughes, which led to a drinking problem along with him smoking up to eight cigars a day.

 

The year 2000 – the 20th anniversary and a very tragic event

 

Herbalife’s 20th anniversary year was marked by a very tragic event. In the summer of 2000, Mark Hughes died at the age of 44 in his mansion. Darcy Hughes told coroner’s officials that her husband had been drinking the night of May 20 and had fallen asleep on the living-room sofa. She awoke at 10:30 on the Sunday morning to find him dead on their bed. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office concludes he died of a toxic combination of alcohol and Doxepin, an antidepressant he was taking to help him sleep. The same report said he was being treated for his drinking and smoking problems. The death was ruled an accident, an eerie echo of the drug-related death of Hughes’ mother 25 years earlier.

 

When you sum up everything, Hughes story is a tale of a troubled man who grew up amid discord and drug abuse and, as an adult, he poured himself into his Herbalife dream and have become a prisoner of his public image.

 

Alongside that the loss of this visionary leader who ran the company for 20 years, was incredibly hard, this event’s negative publicity cast a shadow over a company that had been championing health and well-being. After the tragic death of Mark Hughes, Herbalife entered into a period of chaos. This included a legal war around Alex Hughes, Mark’s then 13-year-old son who was the sole beneficiary of the estate. This era would be remembered as the scandal sourrounding “allegations of adults lining their pockets at the teenager’s expense, of sexual harassment of his mother, a former beauty queen, and of lengthy personal vendettas”.

 

in 2002, after Hughes passing, Herbalife eventually did go private after being acquired by private equity firms Whitney & Company and Gold Gate Capital for $685 million, to improve its products and internal operations.

Mark Hughes was a controversial character, and many aspect of his personal life continue to be clouded in mystery,

but one thing is for certain; when it came to business, Mark Hughes was a massive success! 15 years later, by the time of Hughes’ sudden and untimely death, his company had grown into one of the largest and most powerful in America.

  

But despite all this, it would be wrong to call Herbalife under Hughes anything but a success story. Hughes developed a product which he sold from his car’s trunk, and turned it into a multi-million dollar global empire. Herbalife and Hughes will remain inseparable for all days to come. Even after his death, Hughes’ image continues to adorn the Herbalife website, and he continues to be a hero to the company’s loyal supporters. Without Hughes there would have been no Herbalife. He was certainly not perfect, he made mistakes, and he has to be considered partly responsible for the company’s troubles in 1985. But from then until now Herbalife goes on stronger than ever. 

 

 Today, Herbalife has been successfully trading on the New York Stock Exchange since 2004,
and is endorsed by top athletes across the world.

2003 - Michael O Johnson Arrives At Herbalife

 

Three years after Hughes’ death, in 2003, Michael O Johnson was recruited as the firm as CEO - a position he maintains today. Transitioned from "The Walt Disney Company" as Chief Executive Officer of Herbalife, following a series of events and turmoils, he transformed Herbalife into a more professionally-run company.  Johnson carried a Batchelor of Arts in Political Science from Western State College, and had been at Disney since 1986, where he worked as president of Buena Vista Home Entertainment. Upon his appointment, Johnson cited his passion for triathlon – running, swimming and cycling – as one of the key factors motivating his decision to join Herbalife.  His appointment was a masterstroke.  What better way to prove the effectiveness of your products than by showing your top man to be using them, and thriving with them? Johnson himself described the job as mixing ‘a personal passion with a business passion’.

 

Under Johnson the company went public again in 2004, this time trading on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE (HLF) — where it has remained and flourished as a publicly traded MLM company. Had this event not happened, would Herbalife have been more or less successful than it is now? It is not possible to know. However, it would have been a very different company in many aspects, for sure.

 

A New Era For Herbalife

 

Johnson immediately set about implementing improvements within the company, nowhere less so than with the products themselves. In the same year that he joined Herbalife, the company awarded a grant to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to set up a Cellular and Molecular Nutrition Laboratory bearing the name of Herbalife’s late founder, Mark Hughes. Further, a Nutrition Advisory Board, which included Nobel Prize-winning scientist Louis Ignarro, was established, and strict quality control procedures were introduced. Johnson continues to take great pride in the science which he believes underpins his company’s products.  

 

In 2005 Herbalife Chairman and CEO Michael Johnson saluted Hughes when he chose the name of the Brazilian orphanage as the moniker for the expanded outreach program. Casa Herbalife now serves some 13,000 children in about 60 international locations.

 

In December 2005, Johnson’s hard work was officially recognised when he beat some of America’s best-known CEOs to win the Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch Reader’s Choice CEO of the Year award, taking an incredible 55% of the vote.  His vote dwarfed runner-up, Apple’s Steven Jobs, who achieved 15% of the vote, and Google’s Eric Schmidt, who gained 9% to come in third.

 

Under Fire: Johnson Stands Firm

 

Under Michael O Johnson’s leadership, Herbalife doubled its net sales, and saw its stock soar by 124% in just 52 weeks, however Herbalife still struggled to shake off critisicm about the health risks associated with their products, and the controversy surrounding their multi-level structure.  Accusations of pyramid selling and suggestions that their products contained a dangerous volume of lead prompted Johnson to make a number of high-profile defences of Herbalife on, amongst other things, Fox News and CNBC.  Even Ignarro’s stunning scientific achievements were not enough to shelter him from criticism, and some of the products he has pioneered for Johnson have continued to be slaughtered by critics.  Johnson, however, is no shrinking violet, and he was commended for putting his neck on the block to answer difficult questions about Herbalife. He remains very pro-active in his defence of the company, and is determined to make Herbalife one of the biggest and most respected companies in the world.

 

Johnson: Charisma or leaderhip?

 

It is apparent that despite Johnson’s dedication to cleaning up the image of Herbalife, many sceptics still harbour doubts about the company’s credentials and the way they operate.  Johnson, however, has won over many critics with his charismatic persona and passion for his products, and has dragged Herbalife into the mainstream, achieving a credibility for the company that many thought impossible.  Herbalife’s sales continue to impress, with stock market expert Jim Cramer commenting that they continue to ‘overdeliver on their promises…every single quarter…crushing the Street’s estimates’.  Johnson can rightly accept the credit for much of the company’s recent success.  Where criticism does persist, Johnson’s willingness to put himself in the firing line in order to defend his company has impressed supporters and critics alike.

  

Luckily for Herbalife, Michael O. Johnson has integrity, moral, charisma and determination in abundance.

UNDERNEATH JOHNSON, HERBALIFE STANDS UP TO NEW ATTACKS!

 

A decade after being listed on the NYSE, Herbalife came under its most serious investigation by the FTC in 2014. Allegations of being an illegal pyramid scheme caused the stock price to free fall and even hedge fund managers got in the action; placing trades and shorting their positions so that they would make money if and when the company was shut down. The head of hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management Bill Ackman, started a five year long battle, betting that Herbalife stock value will drop to zero, and that “Participants in the Herbalife scheme, the distributors, ‘obtain their monetary benefits primarily from recruitment rather than the sale of goods and services to consumer,” which proved not to be true because over the past five years, the company has improved its financial picture in several areas. Revenue grew at a rate of 7.7%, Ebitda at a rate of 4% and free cash flow at a rate of 1.2%. It holds $1.28 billion in cash and $2.17 billion in debt on its balance sheet.

 

The Federal Trade Commission fined Herbalife $200 million after an investigation, but it never officially called the company a pyramid scheme. This settlement against Herbalife was for commiting “deceptive and unlawful acts”, which was essentially an expensive slap on the wrist for the network marketing company. The FTC would use the settlement money to send checks to almost 350,000 former distributors who allegedly lost money running their Herbalife businesses.

 

The FTC agreement also stated that: 

• The company will now differentiate between participants who join simply to buy products at a discount and those who join the business opportunity. “Discount buyers” will not be eligible to sell product or earn rewards.
• Multi-level compensation that business opportunity participants earn will be driven by retail sales. At least two-thirds of rewards paid by Herbalife to distributors must be based on retail sales of Herbalife products that are tracked and verified. No more than one-third of rewards can be based on other distributors’ limited personal consumption.
• Companywide, in order to pay compensation to distributors at current levels, at least 80 percent of Herbalife’s product sales must be comprised of sales to legitimate end-users. Otherwise, rewards to distributors must be reduced.
• Herbalife is prohibited from allowing participants to incur the expenses associated with leasing or purchasing premises for “Nutrition Clubs” or other business locations before completing their first year as a distributor and completing a business training program.
• The settlement also prohibits Herbalife from misrepresenting distributors’ potential or likely earnings. The order specifically prohibits Herbalife from claiming that members can “quit their job” or otherwise enjoy a lavish lifestyle. 

Herbalife hailed the ruling as a victory. The FTC did not force the company to change its core business model, but placed new restrictions on sales that affected only 20% of revenues. 

 

While it appears to some that Herbalife negotiated away the words ‘pyramid scheme’ from the settlement agreement, the FTC’s findings are clear.

 

Pershing Square respond to all that was: “We expect that once Herbalife’s business restructuring is fully implemented, these fundamental structural changes will cause the pyramid to collapse as top distributors and others take their downlines elsewhere or otherwise quit the business.” In response, Herbalife shares ticked up 7% to an all-time high. Wall Street bigwigs like Carl Icahn saw the MLM’s stock price dropping and began buying up shares in hopes that Herbalife would persist so in the end Icahn’s gain on Herbalife stood at an estimated 112%.

 

As a result, consumer confidence in the company rebounded and their stock priced soared to record highs, along with their product sales.

 

This Epic battle - has been depicted in a quite one sided documentary called "Betting on Zero" which shows mostly the view of the Latin American population, which was directly influenced by the irregularities performed by the company's distributors and a more impartial book named "When the Wolves Bite: Two Billionaires, One Company, and an Epic Wall Street Battle", writtened by Scott Wapner. The book was written with the cooperation of all three parties involved in this story (Carl Ichan, Bill Ackman and Michael O.Johnson) and since some depicted events have not been reported until the settlement was'n officially concluded, it does shed some light about what drove the Wall Street's resident, rock star and hedge-fund manager William A.Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management to wage war against Herbalife and what made him attack so viciously did this challenge bring in the end. Maybe, looking back thanks to this text, everybody can finnaly understand why this war had happened in the first place. 

 

And love ’em or hate ’em, Herbalife remains an MLM success story to this day.

2004 - Arriving at Herbalife

 

When he joined the company in 2004, as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), he played the leading role in the initial public offering and listing of the company at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and conducted a successful confirmation of Sarbanes-Oxley 404. Prior to his role as Executive Director, Goudis was the chief operating officer of the company for 7 years and was responsible for building a global infrastructure that has created competitive advantages. His responsibilities include overseeing global manufacturing activities, product development, quality assurance and control, supply chain and strategic supply, warehousing and logistics, human resources, information technology, security and safety, and regional finance functions and operations

 

During Goudis mandate, the company expanded its Herbalife Innovation and Production Facilities (H.I.M.) to five locations around the world, and now produces about 65 percent of all products under its own roof, ensuring the highest level of quality control. Under Goudis' management, Herbalife Nutrition has also expanded its employee base to over 8,000 worldwide.

 

2017 - Transitional period

 

"During this year of transition, we believe that our performance is now stabilizing and seeing improvements in trends," said Herbalife's Chief Executive Officer, Rich Goudis.

 

Basically, in the summer of 2016, the Federal Trade Commission concluded a two-year Herbalife investigation and asked the company to change the way it operates in the United States. Since then, the Los Angeles company has implemented many changes and FTC conditions to continue doing business successfully. Its shares stabilized on the stock market, and the company is stubbornly opposing to all the attacks of its opponents.

 

Today, Richard P. Goudis is Chief Executive Officer of Herbalife Nutrition. As Chief Executive Officer, Goudis is dedicated about fulfilling the purpose of the company more than ever to make the world healthier and happier. With his passion for innovativeness, education and training, he sets a further strategy for Herbalife Nutrition for perfecting and improving service and product quality. Goudis now monitors all aspects of the company's growth strategy and ensures that the company continues to be recognized as the leader in the field of nutrition.

 

2019 - Inconsistent comment leads to resignation 

 

Goudis’ sudden departure from Herbalife was “not due to any issues regarding the company’s financial reporting, but pertains to comments which recently came to light” that he had made before taking over as chief executive“ that are contrary to the company’s expense-related policies and business practices and were inconsistent with Herbalife Nutrition’s standards and do not reflect the company’s culture.” However Goudis drove great innovation and new product development at the company and it may be said that he was the “force behind the accelerated pace and transition of the business to a faster, more responsive, more growthy business model.” Goudis was once again replaced by the head of the board of directors, Herbalife Michael O. Johnson who was made interim CEO from january 2019.

 

During his Herbalife Nutrition mandate,

Goudis was constantly proving to be one of the most visible,

most experienced and successful leaders in the food industry.