Business

Herbalife prez goes on offense

Herbalife had some good news to tell investors yesterday — but they didn’t seem impressed.

Despite posting better than expected fourth-quarter profit and a positive 2013 outlook, the company saw its shares tumble 4.9 percent to $37.78.

President Des Walsh, in a conference call, said that “despite what we believe to be unprecedented, unfair and untrue attacks on this company, our business continues to do well.”

Walsh was referring to the attack by activist Bill Ackman, who has called Herbalife a pyramid scheme and has placed a $1 billion short bet on it.

Walsh, again, denied Ackman’s claim.

Herbalife said it will change in April the classification of its distributors who only sign up in order to get discounted products — a key data point that it believes could prove it has enough end users to not be a pyramid scheme.

Critics argue the move could hurt its recruiting.

Herbalife’s regulatory filing shows it has also been burning up its credit line, largely to refinance a stock-buyback program.

It currently has only $192.5 million left on the credit line, after increasing it to $500 million since Dec. 31.

Since Jan. 17, believing the stock is undervalued, the LA-based company has bought back 4 million shares at an average price of $40.61, for a total of $162.4 million.

“If Herbalife really wants investors to understand their business better and provide full transparency, as [CEO Michael] Johnson said on the call, they should start by answering even one of the 284 questions we submitted publicly to them two weeks ago,” Ackman said yesterday.

Herbalife spokeswoman Barb Henderson responded, “Having made what we view as a reckless bet based on flawed theories, we believe [Ackman’s fund] Pershing Square has no other choice but to continue to misrepresent the facts and disrupt the marketplace.”