저자: 미상 · 외국인
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결론: 영상은 2012년 애크먼(헤지펀드)과 아이칸의 허벌라이프 대립을 다루며, 특정 종목 매수·매도 권유가 아닌 역사적 사건 설명 영상이다. 배경: 애크먼은 2008년 금융위기 때 MBIA 공매도로 큰 수익을 냈고, 2012년 허벌라이프를 피라미드 사기로 판단해 약 10억 달러 규모의 공매도에 나섰다. 허벌라이프 구조: 다단계(MLM) 회사로 영양제·체중관리 제품을 판매하며, 하위 유통업자 대부분이 연 수당 0달러 수준이라는 애크먼 보고서 주장이 소개된다. 영상은 MLM과 피라미드의 차이(제품 판매 여부)도 설명한다. 아이칸의 입장: 아이칸은 허벌라이프가 저평가됐다고 보고 주식을 대량 매수해 약 15% 지분을 확보했고, 이사회 5석을 차지했다. 그는 애크먼의 공매도가 회사 폐쇄를 노린 비도덕적 행위라고 비판했다. 사건 전개: 2014년 FTC가 조사를 시작했고 2016년 2억 달러 벌금과 최대 35만 명 환불 등을 포함해 합의했다. 애크먼은 합의 후에도 주가가 상승해 손실을 봤고, 2018년 완전히 철수했다. 아이칸 이후: 아이칸은 2년 더 보유 후 2021년 대부분 매각하고 이사직을 내려놓았으며, 현재 약 6% 지분을 보유한다고 언급된다. 리스크/교훈: 영상은 주식시장 예측이 매우 어렵고 옳은 판단도 손실로 이어질 수 있다는 점을 강조한다. 허벌라이프는 중국 사업 관련 문제가 남아 있다고 언급된다. 대상 자산 발언: 영상 내 허벌라이프 주가 방향에 대한 현재 기준 1~3개월 예측 발언은 없고, 과거 주가 움직임 설명만 있다.
다듬은 글
when people imagine being a billionaire they think about mansions yachts travel expensive dinners but what they don't normally think about is drama after all why would there be drama when you can just wave all your problems away with your checkbook as the great notorious big once said mo money mo problems for billionaires bill ackman and carl icahn a personal feud broke out over a company called herbalife with each investor taking opposing positions on the stock akman was betting against the stock a couple times we come across a company we think is causing harm we can make money betting against that company verbalized stock goes down we make money herbalife stock goes up we lose money and that's short selling citing that he thought the company was a pyramid scheme whereas icon was convinced the company was a once in a lifetime opportunity the wildest dreams you've ever thought of can come true in herbalife what resulted was a decent amount of shade thrown between the two in various interviews and online it all started back in 2012.
bill ackman's style of investing is known as activist investing meaning that oftentimes he engages in investments that have benefits for the economy and the common good he's most known for shorting municipal bond insurance association stock back in the 2008 financial crisis mbia was one of those real crooked companies that insured debt securities and basically inflated their value so that they could be sold with triple a ratings ackman's short sale of this company made him a boatload of money since then he's continued his activism against shoddy companies and in 2012 he took a position on a company called herbalife because he believed that the company was acting as a pyramid scheme what they came up with is they called the bottom of the pyramid strategy and it was a strategy where they decided to target the poorest people in the world i mean it sounds incredible but true herbalife is a multi-level marketing company which sells nutrition and weight management supplements we could do a whole video on multi-level marketing companies but i'm sure you've at least heard about them there are some pretty great memes about them the essence of an mlm company is that they outsource the sales team of their products the distributors sell the company's products and earn commission the more you sell the higher up the ladder you climb at the company and you earn more commission from the sales of those working underneath you the shady part of the deal usually comes when the company actually makes the people selling the product buy it from them this system ensures that if you stick with the company longer and convince enough people to get on board and purchase starter kits from you you can start to make money but for many people it's just a time and money sync and they see no return from being involved so you can see how an mlm company can be described as a pyramid in shape the person on the top of the organization makes the most as they're taking commission from everyone beneath them for each person in the pyramid they make less than the person above them and the people on the bottom make the least and sometimes even lose money mlms and pyramid schemes are different in one key way however pyramid schemes typically don't sell any product whatsoever the product is the program itself they usually promise their members sky high returns and all they need to do is get other people involved mlms on the other hand are actually selling a product to the general public the idea is that each individual contributor is a salesman for the product many pyramid schemes have masqueraded as multi-level marketing schemes because this distinction is very loose and the lines between product and the program are sometimes hard to draw despite having a somewhat shady business structure herbalife is a super successful company the company has been around since 1980 and only five years after it was started it was already raking in hundreds of millions of dollars but since its inception it is consistently run into trouble with the government the food and drug administration has consistently rebuked the company's claims about the efficacy of their products especially because the products exist in the strange realm of not a drug but a supplement or a diet drink that's a fancy way of saying that the claims they make in their marketing are completely unproven and largely untested comedian tim mentioned had a really funny way of explaining the difference between drugs and supplements by definition i begin alternative medicine i continue has either not been proved to work or been proved not to work do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work medicine herbalife has tried to clean up its act over the years and has made some pretty good strides i'll get into all that in due time i don't want to get ahead of myself in our story so back to bill ackman high of his successes with his big short and a few other successful endeavors akman set his sights on herbalife he issued a report to his associates at pershing square capital management in which he discussed the remarkable growth of the company typically only seen by product companies that have been around significantly longer he compared the company to energizer and clorox but unlike those other companies he argued has anyone ever purchased an herbalife product compared to other two billion dollar brands herbalife's formula one brand seems pretty unknown and compared to its competitors it's the only one that doesn't have a ready-to-drink offering and only comes in powder form and it's also significantly more expensive to make we took those images directly from ackman's report on the subject and it's crazy interesting suffice to say that there truly seems to be something fishy going on from their remarkably low spend on marketing and research and development to its complete lack of innovation in the space hackman brings up some really interesting points that really make you start to scratch your head and think why is this company valued at the price that it is the report goes on to offer some really compelling evidence that herbalife is in fact not an mlm at all but instead a pyramid scheme in which the only way to actually make money is through the recruitment awards and not by selling the product in fact ackman claims that the bottom 93 of people involved in the company make a median annual compensation of zero dollars that's right no money at all i've included the report in the description it's overflowing with really juicy details so what does this all lead to the stock is overvalued and what the company does is highly unethical and possibly illegal what's an activist investor to do in such a situation simple short the stock short everything that guy has touched i want half a billion more swaps a short simply put is a bet against a company i know we're all hyped up against the institutional investors shorting gamestop recently but historically short sellers have been some of the most honest players in the game they're the guys who aren't hyping up a stock only to dump it and leave the retail investors holding bags of worthless stock in the case of ackman and herbalife his crusade was against a company that he believed was actively deceiving investors and the people that they tricked into becoming their distributors for ackman his short was an attempt at righting a wrong and he went big on this idea he bet about one billion dollars against the company so where does carl icon fit into all of this well after ackman's stunt against herbalife the market reacted pretty strongly and the stock dipped significantly the stock market is a pretty fluid organism one that in many ways follows natural laws one of which brought icon firmly into view for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction similarly to ackman icon views himself as an activist investor in the 80s icon was heavily involved in buying up failing company stocks and changing the companies from within this strategy has come to be known as vulture capitalism and it has worked famously well for him in simple terms icon is famous for buying the dip when someone is well known and successful like icon takes an interest in a company others take notice what results is a run on the stock following icon's disclosures oftentimes bringing zombie companies back from the dead so when others saw the herbalife stock dipping icon saw an opportunity icon thought the company was grossly undervalued and also thought that ackman's position was morally questionable to icon the only way that ackman would win was if the government put the company out of business to him that seemed immoral because putting the company out of business would put people out of work at least that's what he said publicly he also criticized the 300 page report that akman put out claiming that he didn't see any amount of expert opinion within it in his opinion ackman's pr stunt against herbalife was a way to publicly denounce a company and profit off the short positions that he held to me this would have seemed plausible if ackman had gotten out at the right time if he had he would have made around 600 million dollars on his short but he didn't it seemed like akban was in it for the long haul icon started buying up shares in the company amping things up for a major short squeeze and going long on the company as icon usually did he bought up so many shares that he had a 15 stake in the company the largest of any individual investor and enough shares that he could start having a major influence in the direction of the company the resulting battle between icon and ackman started to grow ugly and boy did we the viewers love watching the carnage who doesn't love watching two billionaires publicly bash one another they exchanged a lot of hilarious insults such as well let's let's this is not an honest guy and this is not a guy who keeps his word and this guy takes protected advantage of little k so let's start with what i want to say ackman is a liar okay ashman has a how he does trump a dumb he's got one of the worst reputations on wall street and i'm going to tell you this herbalife is a classic example of what he does icon had a pretty hilarious meltdown on cnbc that's worth a watch so here we have these two investors taking opposite long positions on a company ackman thinks the company will fail icon wants to take control of the company and help it reach new highs the battle lasted nearly six years over the course of that battle icon amassed five seats on the herbalife board the company's stock price went up and down and it was really unclear who made the right call until a pretty eventful mishap occurred for herbalife in 2014 the federal trade commission opened an investigation against herbalife the charges you guessed it the company was operating its business as a pyramid scheme the company was investigated for a full two years until they settled with the ftc in 2016.
in order to remain in business they were subject to a 200 million dollar fine and they had to permanently restructure their business and they had to refund as many as 350 000 distributors of the herbalife product for ackman this was a huge success in his plan to short the company he stated that regardless of what happened to the stock price he was actually right to have shorted it for this reason alone but that doesn't mean everything worked out for his short in fact after the news of the settlement broke the company stock actually rose in value and over that year rose to an additional 51 percent in value sometimes the stock market just doesn't make a whole lot of sense ackman eventually exited his short position and reinvested with a less risky put option against the company that still didn't work out for him and in 2018 ackman exited completely after taking fairly heavy losses for his efforts as for icon after ackman exited he stayed on as an investor with herbalife for an additional two years but many other investors found him to be overbearing according to one analyst he quote went from being a white knight to being an overhang in 2021 icon made his exit selling most of his stock he still owns six percent but he's given up his board seats as for their relationship icon and ackman seemed to be on better terms in many ways i think they enjoyed giving america a bit of a show they even appear jointly on stage for investor conference delivering alpha one of the largest conferences of its kind in the end whenever there's a winner in the stock market there has to be a loser too for icon his long bet in favor of herbalife panned out for ackman not so much it's a painful reminder that the stock market is incredibly hard to predict and sometimes you don't win even when you're right where's herbalife now well they're still in a bit of trouble as far as i understand it over allegations that they've illegally run their business in china this time maybe another activist investor will pick up ackman's mantle it's not too late for the company to go to zero you
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