A COMMENTARY from Cloakroom Confidential:
A new movie has come out purporting to be an expose on the company Herbalife. The movie is titled “Betting on Zero” and is an attempt to make liberal hedge fund activist, Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital, as a billionaire hero for the little guy.
What the movie leaves out is that Bill Ackman has resorted to using his cash to lobby Washington to make good on a billion dollar bet that Herbalife will go out of business. Ackman took a short against the company Herbalife and then make a case to investors that the company was a flawed business model. He did drive down the stock price but not enough to make good on his bet, so he then resorted to paying public relations firms and lobbyists to get the federal government to investigate the company in the hopes that a federal…
