Congressional Democrats assist billionaire hedge-fund manager in Wall Street feud

  |   29 October, 2014   |   313   |   3980

Two years ago, billionaire hedge-fund manager William Ackman announced boldly — from a stage in a Manhattan conference center — that his Pershing Square Capital Management had taken a $1 billion short position on publicly traded Herbalife, the Los Angeles-based maker of nutrition products.



He was, in other words, betting that Herbalife would fail.



Hoping to persuade investors to bail on the company’s stock, he has repeated the claim he made then — that Herbalife unfairly targets the poor, and especially Latinos, in what he calls “the best-managed pyramid scheme in the history of the world.”



But two years on, Ackman’s high-profile multimedia battle has apparently failed — and even backfired. He recently admitted that another glossy presentation, in July, inadvertently set off a rise in Herbalife’s stock.



Many would give up. But not William Ackman.