Herbalife Ltd. has released financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2017. The Los Angeles-based company reported fourth quarter 2017 net sales of $1.1 billion, an increase of 4.6 percent, while net sales for full-year 2017 were $4.4 billion, a decrease of 1.4 percent compared to full-year 2016.
“After a year of transition, we returned to net sales growth in the fourth quarter as expected, and we anticipate stronger net sales growth for the full year in 2018,” said Rich Goudis, CEO of Herbalife. “This growth is due to the determination and hard work of our talented independent distributors and employees around the globe who are continuously looking for ways to fulfill our purpose to make the world healthier and happier.”
Herbalife also announced, consistent with the company’s succession strategy, a new executive organization structure effective May 1, 2018. The company’s president, Des Walsh, will transition to the new role of executive vice chairman, where his 14 years of experience at the company will primarily be used in growing the business and developing and maintaining strong relationships with the company’s distributor leaders around the world.
Concurrently with Walsh’s transition to his new role, two company veterans will each be promoted to serve as co-president of the company, each with separate but complementary responsibilities for leading the company forward.
John DeSimone, currently chief financial officer, will assume the role of co-president and chief strategic officer, where he will manage the company’s regional leadership, who have responsibility for growing the company’s nutrition business and driving performance in more than 90 countries around the globe. These will be new duties for DeSimone, who will continue to manage the company’s financial planning and investor relations operations.
Chief health and nutrition officer, Dr. John Agwunobi, also will assume the role of co-president and continue in his position leading the company’s nutrition and fitness training and medical and consumer affairs. He will expand his responsibilities to concentrate on enhancing the distributor and customer experience. This new position will work intimately with distributors and customers, ensuring that the company is continuously innovating in the areas of corporate sales, technology, marketing and product development.
As part of this new organization structure, current senior vice president and principal accounting officer, Bosco Chiu, having served close to 25 years at the company, will be promoted to executive vice president and chief financial officer. In addition, current acting general counsel Richard Werber will assume the new role of chief legal officer, while current senior vice president, deputy general counsel and chief compliance officer Henry Wang will be promoted to executive vice president and general counsel.
To read the full Herbalife Q4 2017 report, click here.
