Pershing Square

Wondering why Herbalife is down over 12% in the past few minutes? Wonder no more: moments ago Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey, who apparently has a morbid interest in protein shakes - more so than the FTC - asked for more information about the business practices of nutrition company Herbalife. Markey sent letters to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and to Herbalife itself to try an obtain more information, his office said in a news release on Thursday. The take home from all of this?  Senator Edward Markey has an advance invite to the Pershing Square holiday ball.

Either the Volcker Rule is making Wall Street's menu of investment choices so unbearably limited, or traditional assets are so overpriced Wall Street won't even touch them with other people's money, but when it comes to allocating capital the smartest conmen in the room are coming up with some truly unorthodox products. Such as investing in ex-convicts in the form of 2000 newly released prisoners.

Many Ponzi schemes work for a while, but it is only a matter of time before the tide goes rolling out to Sea.

It was nearly three months ago when we warned that Ackman's latest strategy of converting 40% of his Herbalife short exposure into puts would massively backfire, first because he still have major short squeeze potential left on his books, and second because now he is subject to theta or a time horizon, for his thesis to play out. Ackman's (il)logic was summarized as follows: "The explanation of being forced out of nearly half of his position is amusing: "we minimize the risk of so-called short squeezes or other technical attempts by market manipulators to force us to cover our position." So Ackman is forced out by his Prime Brokers so as not to be forced out by market manipulators? That's an interesting explanation for what is a far simple situation: booking your paper losses." Just under three months later HLF hit its all time highs, and Ackman's puts (not to mention his stock short) have generated material losses. Back then we concluded that "with trades like this, which has now become an ideological obsession and moved beyond and semblance of rational investing (any normal person would have pulled the plug on the nearly half a billion dollar losing trade long ago) and is rapidly morphing into a replica of Pershing Square IV, said career may not be too long." Today, the embattled so-called retail expert pours more fuel in the futre, and provides a 7-page update on what his plans for Herbalife are. In short: it really does seem that Ackman is prepared to take his HLF short until the end of the world...  or its LBO. Whichever comes first.

UPDATE: Herbalife is halted for the following news:

- HERBALIFE COMPLETES RE-AUDIT FOR FISCAL '10 '11, '12
- HERBALIFE NO MATERIAL CHANGES TO 2010, 2011 OR 2012 FINL

Which opens the doors for the substantial buyback they have planned. We suspect one can hear a pin drop in Pershing Square's headquarters.

Herbalife has re-opened up 9% over $75 on very heavy volume - It seems Ackman's "end of the earth" bet may take a little longer...

This week marks the one-year anniversary of Bill Ackman’s 342-page slide presentation at the Ira Sohn Conference in NYC.  At that time he publicly disclosed his $1 billion short bet against Herbalife (HLF), accusing the company of being a pyramid scheme and claiming its stock was destined to fall to zero once regulators stepped in.  As everyone knows, HLF shares plummeted, losing nearly half their value in the three days after the presentation.  The market’s initial response did not last, and HLF is up about 160% since its 12/21/12 low of $26.06 (vs S&P 500 +24%).  Pershing Square’s public campaign has taken many forms, as Barclays outlines below...

It would be tragic if it wasn't so hilarious. Nearly a year after we first suggested that Herbalife is the long of 2013, as a result of the epic short squeeze potential resulting from the Ackman announcement of his mega short,(promptly followed by the traditional Whitney Tilson piggyback) which it has been, rising from $25 to an all time high of $77.39 days ago, Herbalife has had enough of the so-called retail expert's (coughJCPcough) repeated allegations of fraud, and after taking a well-deserved victory lap costing Ackman hundreds of millions, has decided to hit him where it truly hurts - his clients. Bloomberg reports that Herbalife is approaching investors in Ackman’s hedge fund, suggesting they pull their money from the $12 billion firm.

Following Kyle Bass' earlier comments on Herbalife's ability to tap the capital markets for a major buyback: HERBALIFE WILL BE ABLE TO BORROW AS MUCH AS $2B, BASS SAYS;  An HLF spokesperson has noted that Carl Icahn will not be selling (following the stock's close above a key level that enables him to sell). This has sent the stock to $77.39 - an all-time high. HERBALIFE SAYS ICAHN HAS NO PRESENT INTENTION TO SELL SHARES. We can only imagine how Ackman feels as day after day of theta is sucked out of his puts...

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It just keeps getting worse and worse for Bill Ackman. A few weeks after the epic humiliation, not to mention even more epic losses, he suffered on his now defunct JCP long position (despite ample warnings by the likes of Zero Hedge who said long ago JCP is merely a melting icecube and fast-track Chapter 11/7 candidate) all those who predicted (such as Zero Hedge back in January) that an epic HLF short squeeze would result in the aftermath of Ackman's Herbalife short announcement leading to Ackman's ultimate capitulation, have been proven correct. Moments ago, in a letter to investors, Bill Ackman just announced that he has covered over 40% of his Herbalife short position, with his forced buy-in explaining the endless move higher in Herbalife stock in recent weeks. The explanation of being forced out of nearly half of his position is amusing: "we minimize the risk of so-called short squeezes or other technical attempts by market manipulators to force us to cover our position." So Ackman is forced out by his Prime Brokers so as not to be forced out by market manipulators? That's an interesting explanation for what is a far simple situation: booking your paper losses.

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"Citigroup Global Markets Inc. is acting as underwriter of the offering. We and the Selling Stockholders have entered into an underwriting agreement with the underwriter. Subject to the terms and conditions of the underwriting agreement, the Selling Stockholders have agreed to sell to the underwriter, and the underwriter has agreed to purchase 39,075,771 shares of common stock at a price of $12.60 per share, which will result in $492,354,715 of aggregate proceeds to the Selling Stockholders before expenses. The underwriter is committed to purchase all the common shares offered by the Selling Stockholders if it purchases any shares."

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29 months after ramping his initial stake to over 39 million shares (and witnessing a collapse of the stock from Over $40 to under $13), Ackman has decided that enough is enough. Through a just filed Citi-sole managed prospectus, Pershing Square is set to sell his entire 39,075,771 share stake in the beleaguered firm. The stock price's initial plunge on the news was immediately met by an avalanche of algo-driven buying to enable those that can to escape quick but as we post, JCP is heading back to its lows. With an overall cost-basis in the mid $20s, this one will sting a bit.