This is ChildPeople.com Extreme Billionaire Edition - Bill Ackman, a billionaire who runs a hedge fund called Pershing Square Capital Management took a very aggressive financial bet that the stock of Herbalife would drop in price. In finance parlance, he "shorted" the stock and this is typically accomplished by borrowing stock of say Herbalife and selling it in hopes that you can buy it back later at a much lower price, thus "covering" your position and pocketing the difference. The size of Bill's bet is reported to be about a billion dollars according to the NY Times and the premise for his bet is that he believes Herbalife is a Pyramid Scheme and outright fraud of a company. Shortly after Bill made his announcement, another billionaire, Carl Icahn who runs Icahn Enterprises, a diversified holding company, saw an opportunity to sock it to his longtime rival and made a financial bet that Herbalife's stock price would rise and thus "squeeze" Bill out of his bet. To make matters worse, other billionaires bet alongside Carl Icahn including George Soros and Daniel Loeb who runs hedge fund, Third Point. So far, as the stock of Herbalife has risen, it is reported that Bill is in the negative several hundred millions of dollars in paper losses. Listen to the Billionaire Smackdown in the link below full of quotes such as Carl saying, "[Ackman] is like the cry baby in the schoolyard... [Ackman] was like one of these little Jewish boys crying that the whole world was taking advantage of him." Only time will tell which one of these billionaires is right about Herbalife.
http://youtu.be/YDWMcM2b2o0
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