Catch up on this week’s industry chatter with these click-worthy links:
- After Pershing Square manager Bill Ackman announced his fund’s billion-dollar short position in Herbalife, calling the nutrition company a fraud, fellow investor Carl Icahn took an opposing stake, prompting a war of words between the two Wall Street moguls. In the three-plus years since Ackman launched his campaign, he and Icahn have set aside their differences, but both have stuck to their guns on Herbalife, as Icahn confirmed in a Thursday interview with CNBC. Icahn maintained that Ackman is “dead wrong” in his characterizations of the company, which is currently in talks with the Federal Trade Commission to resolve a probe into its business practices.
- Door-to-door selling isn’t just for cable and cosmetics, as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as HANDS Pakistan are proving. Like Living Goods, recently featured by The Wall Street Journal, HANDS is using a social enterprise model to provide basic necessities and health products in developing regions. In Pakistan, the organization has trained a team of women who go door-to-door offering various forms of contraception, counseling and additional health services to women who otherwise would have little-to-no access to birth control and adequate health care.
- Shares of Singapore-based Best World International dropped 23 percent Thursday following a query by the Singapore Exchange (SGX) concerning the company’s upbeat first-quarter earnings report. Best World shares have quadrupled this year, climbing before and after the maker of personal-care and nutrition products posted a 161 percent jump in first-quarter revenue to $35.2 million. Executives and analysts speculate that the firm’s positive results and planned entry into China have contributed to the stock’s rapid rise, which prompted the SGX query.
- Direct selling leader Amway is taking a proactive, straightforward approach to addressing common questions about the company and its business model through its Amway Answers video series. In the latest segment, published to the company’s YouTube channel on Wednesday, Chief Sales Officer John Parker tackles the fundamental question, “What is direct selling?”
