RE:I love Bill Ackman's approach to investingI have to agree with you. Herbalife's business model does seem sleazy and could be illegal and fraudulent.
Ackman doesn't usually take a swing unless he really believes in what he's doing. CP's a good recent example, and there are many others
Herbalife might have Icahn, Soros and a few other's on side for now but none of these guys are infalible. Maybe the only reason they're there is because they don't like Ackman. Look at what ended up happening with Icahn's recent end run at Apple. He didn't have much siccess with that.
If the regulators in the U.S. decide to go after Herbalife because complaints start to snowball, they won't let go until they've had they pound of flesh, and that's exactly what Ackman is steering them to do.
Once that happens, or even starts to look like it has a good likelyhood of happenning, all these longs will scatter like dust in the wind. These guys are anything but stupid. What amazes me is that they would even consider supporting this type of business, especially Soros.