Sales & Earnings In Brief

Herbalife's "soft" spot: Multilevel nutritional supplement marketer Herbalife reaches record annual net sales of $2.4 billion for 2008 despite an 11.3 percent drop in fourth-quarter net sales to $512.9 million. "Unprecedented currency fluctuations" cut into fourth-quarter income, reducing net sales by 856 basis points and causing a 2.7 percent drop in local currency year-over-year sales, the Los Angeles-based company says Feb. 24. "We ended the year on a soft note," Chairman and CEO Michael Johnson said. The company in December began restructuring to lower costs by improving alignment with its distributors and reducing workload. For the October-December period, the company's net income fell 59.6 percent to $33.7 million, due in part to general and administration expenses and lower sales. Fourth-quarter sales were down in each of the firm's regions other than a flat performance in North America, $109.3 million. Sales dropped 18.9 percent in Europe, the Middle East and Africa region to $117.4 million, 4.5 percent in Asia Pacific to $97 million, 20.7 percent in South America to $78.8 million and 28.5 percent in Mexico and Central America to $69.9 million, Herbalife said. Full-year sales grew 9.9 percent and net income grew 13.4 percent to $221.2 million, or $3.36 per diluted share. Herbalife added 45,657 sales associates in the quarter, 19.5 percent fewer than the year-ago period, but the number increased 6.6 percent for the year to 505,094