Bill Ackman vows to unveil 'incredible' fraud at Herbalife

Acitivist hedge fund investor Bill Ackman vowed late on Monday he would would on Tuesday unveil an “incredible fraud” at nutritional supplement company Herbalife that he claimed will cause the company to collapse. Herbalife shares fell about 11 per cent.

Ackman’s Pershing Square hedge fund has made a roughly $1 billion bet selling Herbalife’s shares “short” — meaning he will make money if the stock falls.

Ackman alleges the company is a kind of pyramid scheme, pitching him directly against Carl Icahn, another activist investor, who took a “long” position in the shares of the company, which has a stock market value of more than $5 billion.

“You are going to learn why Herbalife is going to collapse … this is the largest fraud, public fraud in terms of scale …” Ackman alleged on CNBC.

“We have hundreds of hours of recorded video, audio, we have internal documents that were given to us by some employees that felt it was in the best interests of the world to know what is really going on at the company …

"This will be the most important presentation that I have made in my career," he said. "We won't disappoint.” Pershing Square said the presentation will take place in a conference centre near Times Square around 2.15pm UK time on Tuesday.

Herbalife has strenuously denied Ackman’s allegations, calling him the “worst of Wall Street.”

“Herbalife continues to face an unprecedented and unrelenting attack from Pershing Square to support its $1 billion bet to manipulate and drive Herbalife's stock price to zero to the detriment of our investors, members, customers and employees,” said Herbalife in a statement.

“Herbalife is confident that the facts are on its side and that it will overcome Pershing Square's campaign of misinformation about the company as the truth about Pershing Square's increasingly desperate accusations is revealed.”