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Herbalife Nutrition Ltd. (HLF)

Q2 2011 Earnings Call· Tue, Aug 2, 2011

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and thank you for joining the Second Quarter 2011 Earning Conference Call for Herbalife Ltd. On the call today is Michael Johnson, the company's Chairman and CEO; the company's President, Des Walsh; John DeSimone, the company's CFO and Brett Chapman, the company's General Counsel. I would now like to turn the call over to Brett Chapman to read the company's Safe Harbor language.

Brett Chapman

Management

Before we begin, as a reminder, during this conference call, comments maybe made that include some forward-looking statements. These statements involve risk and uncertainty and as you know actual results may differ materially from those discussed or anticipated. We encourage you to refer to yesterday's earnings release and our SEC filings for a complete discussion of the risks associated with these forward-looking statements and our business. In addition, during this call certain financial performance measures maybe discussed that differ from comparable measures contained in our financial statements that prepared in accordance with the U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, referred to by the Securities and Exchange Commission as non-GAAP financial measures. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures assist management and investors in evaluating and comparing period-to-period results of operations in a more meaningful and consistent manner. Please refer to the Investor Relations section of our website, herbalife.com to find our press release for this quarter which contains a reconciliation of these measures. Additionally when management makes reference to volume during this conference call we are referring to volume points. I'll now turn the call over to Michael.

Michael Johnson

Management

Thanks Brett. Good morning everyone and welcome to our second quarter earnings call. This has been a very strong quarter. The strong top and bottom line results that we reported yesterday are the results of the hard work of 2.3 million distributors and all of team Herbalife. We'd like to start off by saying thank you to everyone for their commitment to our vision and our mission for nutrition. While we are beginning to see the hard work bear fruit, we believe there is still so much more opportunity ahead of us. Frankly, we're just getting started. Let me start this call by recapping some of the financial results included in our earnings release. Record volume points of 980 million, up 17% over 2010. Record net sales of almost 880 million, a 28% increase over the very strong results of the prior year. Record earnings per share of $0.88, a 35% increase over our earnings of the prior year. Notable, in our record performance is 21% increase in average active sales leaders over the prior year. And finally, our cash from operations was $143 million, an increase of 74% compared to the prior year and a record for us. The drivers of our growth continue to be distributor engagement and expansion of daily consumption. Through daily consumption, more distributors are interacting with more consumers on a regular basis and these consumers are experiencing product results. This creates a sticky customer. In response to a survey of U.S. Nutrition Club members, nearly 60% said they attended a nutrition club everyday, almost 80% attended more than 3 days a week, and more than 40% have been attending the club for longer than one year. In a similar survey, Mexico, more than 50% of members responded that they attend everyday. And 90% attending…

Desmond Walsh

Management

Thank you, Michael. As Michael mentioned, we truly do believe that we are just getting started and I think you would feel the same as I walk you through some of our regional and country-level metrics. The momentum we're seeing in our business continues to be driven by two key forces. Our distributor's commitment to expanding daily consumption business methods around the world, which helps create a long-term stable customer base, and the continuing commitment of our distributors to Herbalife's mission for nutrition. We continue to see the expansion in daily consumption business methods as a primary driver of our distributors business and Herbalife's growth. We believe the momentum behind this evolution will continue to accelerate as more distributors in more markets have success acculturating daily consumption business methods to their markets. We were often asked about how far along we are in the evolution of the business? And as we evaluate penetration metrics by key markets, we believe we are still in the early stages of this transformation in our business. Now, let me provide regional highlights, some color on key countries and by way of background, a little history on the utilization of daily consumption in various regions. This quarter, I'm going to begin my discussion with Mexico, the country where we first see our daily consumption begin to transform a market, in 2003 with the proliferation of home-based Nutrition clubs. So, to those that ask long a market can continue to grow through daily consumption? We believe that Mexico represents a very good indicator of the potential for long-term growth. Mexico, a market where daily consumption has been in place for 8 years just experienced the biggest volume quarter in their history, June 2008 was a record volume month driven by the rapid duplication of Nutrition Clubs…

John DeSimone

Management

Thank you, Des. First, comparing this quarter to last year's second quarter, our volume of $980.5 million increased by 17.1% over the very strong 19.9% increase reported for the second quarter of last year. Our net sales of $879.7 million represents an increase of 27.7% comprised of our local currency net sales increase of 19.9%, plus a 780 basis point benefit from foreign currency. Like the last year's second quarter and the first quarter of this year, the top line strength were consistently throughout the quarter. As Michael noted in his opening comments, the sixth single largest volume months in the company's history are each of the months from this year. Our business momentum is very strong. Compared to our guidance, we exceeded the high end of the range by 43 million volume points or 4.6% and the high-end of our net sales range by $46 million or 5.5%. This improvement versus guidance was consistently spread across the quarter. As Des, has already provided detail commentary on volume, I will turn to gross margin, which for the quarter was approximately 40 basis points better than the second quarter of last year. This was due mostly to cost savings from our seed to feed strategy, including benefits from our new HIM facility in Lake Forest. This facility produced approximately 23% of all worldwide in the nutrition production volume during the quarter, which was in line with our expectations. Sequentially, the manufacturing facility added 58 basis points to gross margin. And we believe that further expansion is possible as we begin to bring manufacturing for other countries, such as several of our South American markets into the facility next year. Additionally, our investment in seed to feed, will continue in the second half of this year when we expect our botanical extraction…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from the line of Mike Schwartz with SunTrust. Mike Schwartz – SunTrust: Good morning, everyone.

Michael Johnson

Management

Good morning, Mike. Mike Schwartz – SunTrust: Hey, with regards to China, could you give us some context around what's going on there with regards to Nutrition Clubs and compare that maybe to what you've seen in some of your other successful markets?

Desmond Walsh

Management

Sure Mike. Hi, this is Des, I'll take that one. So, what we're seeing in China, Mike is essentially transition to daily consumption which is very similar to what we saw taking place in Brazil about three years ago. And whenever that happens, we see a number of things taking place. The first is that we see an increase in the number of our people who are placing orders each month and then we see a reduction in terms of the average order size. And that's really the real indication to us that we're moving more to a market based on daily consumption. So that's why we're, you know, very optimistic about what we're seeing in China based on these trends and what it portends for the future. Mike Schwartz – SunTrust: Okay, great. And this is, is this is first quarter where you've really seen that kick in, because I don't recall you pointing that out specifically in quarters past?

Desmond Walsh

Management

So, we have been talking about these transition to daily consumption in the past, what we're seeing now is the acceleration of that based on the success of our leaders there who've already introduced the concept. So, we now have approximately 1,000 clubs in China, we see that developing. And we're seeing success comes from those leaders who have already adopted them and that tends to accelerate the adoption by other leaders. Mike Schwartz – SunTrust: Okay, great. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John San Marco with Janney. John San Marco – Janney Montgomery Scott LLC: Thanks. Hey guys, and congratulations.

Michael Johnson

Management

Thank you, John. John San Marco – Janney Montgomery Scott LLC: Can you give me an update on what percentage of your total volume you sell through daily consumption business methods? And then, maybe if you also have an estimate how that breaks out versus, you know, in terms of clubs versus weight loss challenges or any other major methods I might be missing?

John DeSimone

Management

So, as you know, John, it's not an exact science or it's an estimate and it's around 35% and accelerating because, you know, Nutrition Clubs and daily consumptions methods of all types are driving our growth. We don't breakout the difference between the various daily consumption methods as it is not an exact science, but it is... John San Marco – Janney Montgomery Scott LLC: Okay. If you don't mind using that same in exact science maybe and just telling me, you know, whether when you breakout that 17% total company volume growth. Do you think the growth metric was substantially higher than in daily consumption? Or how is daily consumption trending versus, you know, the more traditional methods of multilevel marketing?

Desmond Walsh

Management

So, John, this is Des. As John said, it's very difficult to break it out because the reality is that our distributors operate a blend of different business methods in doing their business everyday. So, even though we talk about the clubs, the reality is that in the club you've got a whole variety of different methods being operated simply from a location. So, you have club operators doing weight loss challenges, doing traditional methods, you know, and so on. So that's why it's difficult. Having said that, you know, we do know that we've got more customers consuming the products everyday and that we have more of those customers transitioning to become successful distributors. And obviously for us that's the key import of daily consumption. It's as we refer to the circle of success. So, in terms of volume point with 17%, I think you could safely say that, you've got daily consumption within that accelerating at a higher level, but actually breaking it out specifically is impossible to do.

John DeSimone

Management

You know, I guess, another measurement that we can point you to, to get your comfortable that daily consumption is driving the growth, as look at the countries where growth is occurring at the fastest rate, Mexico, Korea, Brazil, Russia, those are all daily consumption models. John San Marco – Janney Montgomery Scott LLC: Great. That all makes sense and checks out. Just one last one, on the subject of daily consumption. In the past you've articulated a strategy of expanding product offerings, you know, were the right fit for daily consumption clubs and so forth. Can you update me and what you've already changed on this front and then maybe what your plans are?

Michael Johnson

Management

Well, so this is Michael. I think, we're constantly looking at sizing. You know, some of the club models around the world are asking for some larger sizes from us and we are experimenting with that, we're looking at it, we're looking at flavorings. We've come out with a couple of new flavorings and some marketplaces that have been by request in these markets. We're looking at ways obviously to create a lot of excitement in these clubs through new product offerings and we're looking at ways frankly in the future to expand product lines in the clubs that could offer more service to some of our club members who are coming in possibly even in the other nutrition area. John San Marco – Janney Montgomery Scott LLC: Okay. It sounds like that's still something that's mostly still in the planning and experimenting stages, you haven't had any major shifts, it sounds like is that fair?

Michael Johnson

Management

Well, our core products in the club are the shakes and the tea in the allo product and we are definitely looking at local market driven ideas in there. Yes, we've experimented all over – all around the world with different things, but we are not at liberty to go into some of those yet. John San Marco – Janney Montgomery Scott LLC: Great. Well, that's helpful. Thanks again guys and congratulations.

Michael Johnson

Management

Thanks John.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Per Ostlund with Jefferies & Company. Pierre Ostlund with Jefferies & Company.: Thanks. Good morning everybody. Congratulations. Just to maybe a follow-up quickly on Mike's question I think from earlier on China, Des, I know you alluded to a lot of this in your prepared remarks and that answer and it does sound like that transition is very much playing out as you would have expected. I guess maybe my question is realizing that it's something that you guys have sort of looked at institutionalize globally, was there a specific catalyst that sort of, you know, maybe just turned it on a little extra this quarter, like how much might that 5K qualification, had maybe been a little bit of a trigger point for that?

Desmond Walsh

Management

Yeah. So, Per, it's a good question. So anytime we see a transition, it's always obviously a number of factor that contributes that and we do believe that the 5K has helped, because again what it focuses is that is on gradual movement on, you know, up our compensation plan and certainly, you know, that coupled with the club model, it's a very effective combination. So, I think you've got a combination of factors, but I actually believe also Per it's partially acculturation. We know from experience around the world that this probably the single biggest factor because local leaders have to take the concept of the club and then they could work locally and I think that's what we're seeing in terms of the early stages in China today. Pierre Ostlund – Jefferies & Company: Okay, that makes sense. Maybe just and not to dwell on the China issue but and it might be a little bit of a slippery number. But is there a way at all to broadly quantify the impact to the vacation promotions that you had last year, just to maybe frame the discussion a little bit about around the retrenchment volumes this quarter?

Desmond Walsh

Management

You know, obviously promotions have an impact on our business because they create excitement, they support distributor engagement. But actually in a way Per, it's a healthy sign, that the promotions did not have a comparable impact in terms of, you know, driving volumes, because what it means is that our distributors in China focused on daily consumption business methods and not so driven by promotions. So, again, it's another indication to us that China is proceeding in a very healthy way and building a strong long-term sustainable business. Pierre Ostlund – Jefferies & Company: Make sense. Turning quickly to the Lake Forest facility if I may, so you, I think you indicated 23% of the volumes here in this quarter. Is the next phase bringing in the international volumes, some of the South American volumes and perhaps Mexico down the line, is it really just a regulatory thing at this point that keeps it from happening sooner than, you know, early 2012?

John DeSimone

Management

Yes, it's licensing the regulatory, right. There are long lead times on licensing for and putting our products into these countries and when you change manufacturing locations, you have relicense the product. Pierre Ostlund – Jefferies & Company: Okay. Is there anything that we should look for in terms of, is there going to be an inventory build kind of ahead of that transition, is there any one-time kind of cost that we might want to be aware or be need to be aware of it as you'd love to migrate the volumes?

John DeSimone

Management

No, nothing material, I mean, there might be a little build in Mexico but nothing material. Pierre Ostlund – Jefferies & Company: Okay. Then maybe just one last one on 24, it's obviously early days there, but the energy, sports and nutrition was up 44% in the quarter, is 24 some of that impact. And then maybe on that point is the expectation, is the prevailing expectation that 24 might be a type of cannibalistic in the immediate term as the distributor maybe substitutes that for a products they might normally purchase while there are kind of ramping up on learing the selling proposition there?

Michael Johnson

Management

Lot of questions there. So, 24 is moving on nicely in soft launch right now. We've got five of the seven products out. We'll be rolling out both Europe and US much more aggressively through the fall. We're using a promotional platform, obviously this summer of Indianapolis, we've got this Mountain Bike Race in Leadville, Colorado, where one of the presenting sponsors. We also have the World Football Challenge that has given us access to all of the team trainers, we're working with our doctors to go in and spend time them, to educate them about this product. We've a tremendous reception to what this product is all about. It's a brand lifter, it's an image lifter. On the business side, well it might be cannibalistic to a couple of small products in our line, but the real opportunity is to attract new distributors with new business methods, Des mentioned this in his prepared remarks about we are seeing a younger group come in here and apply new business methods in the daily consumption load, but far away from just a Nutrition Clubs or weight loss challenge, they into a fitness challenge on this and they are using many, many different methods for a healthy active lifestyle and are recruiting and retailing based on this and it's really exciting to see these new folks in our business. So, there's a kind of – it's kind of a what Des calls a virtual circle here between the product, the opportunity and the business build. Pierre Ostlund – Jefferies & Company: Maybe just – and I appreciate you are tackling what was obviously a one question there Michael.

Michael Johnson

Management

But a long answer. Pierre Ostlund – Jefferies & Company: How much is the new generation, I guess, if you will coming in behind the 24 product, are they coming in based on some of the brand-building efforts, you've seen around the football challenge and what not, or is it, you know, maybe a regular Nutrition Club attendee that's learning about and going about it that route.

Michael Johnson

Management

I think it's a blend of a lot of things. You got to remember this is a push business and where our distributors push out into the marketplace and attract people to the opportunity, they can certainly take advantage of some of the brand awareness that's been built out there, whether it is through, you know, the use of T-shirts or through the use of big posters or it's the use of the media exposure that we're getting on some of these products, it's truly a blend, it's taking place there and these new distributors coming in, some of them, you know, are attracted to the company by weight loss and then find the opportunity in healthy active lifestyle and fitness. So, it's a lot of doors that they come through. Pierre Ostlund – Jefferies & Company: That makes sense. Thanks for all your answers. Congratulations.

Michael Johnson

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Tim Ramey with DA Davidson. Timothy Ramey – DA Davidson & Co: Good morning. The great performance out of the plant in Southern California, you know, we're hearing new skin talk about maybe saving on some duties and so on by exciting plants in Southeast Asia and I know you have your extraction facility and China coming online, are there opportunities to, you know, perhaps lower gross margin or impact duties through further diversification of the manufacturing into other countries?

Michael Johnson

Management

You know, long term, we recognize as an opportunity to lower duties by producing product closer to consumption and we've a long term strategy to introduce a new facilities, whether there are facilities or lines that we control in with the partner and it maybe 2 to 4 years projects in this point in time, whether that increases gross margin or actually lower selling price in the market is yet to be determined, but there is economic benefit by taking advantage of trade agreements and producing for example sell South American product in Brazil or Asian product in Southeast Asia, Russian products in Russia and so forth. So when we're looking is Brazil somewhere in Southeast Asia, probably India and Eastern Europe. Timothy Ramey – D. A. Davidson & Co. : Great. And then just back to the seed to feed, you know, I didn't write that great piece Michael, but I sure echo the sentiment and it really seems to me that this message resonates with consumers, but I'm not sure that you're in a position to really tell that story as big and as aggressively as you'd might want to. Can you give us a sense of, kind of when you think that can be sort of a strong headline to the sales force to go out and talk about quality assurance and efficacy and traceability of ingredients, when we be able to kind of really advance that?

Desmond Walsh

Management

Yeah Tim. Tim this is Des. We actually have already started aggressively promoting that message. So for example, you saw Michael talk about it, you saw Rich talk about it. Rich now (inaudible) is probably our – one of our most requested corporate speakers around the world and we give him a hard time about it everyday. But it's a testament to how that message really is resonating with our distributors. In addition, we've actually produced a whole set of marketing materials, so that our distributors can help pass that message on. And so, out in our website we've included just a smaller version Richard's presentation because we really do believe this is a point of difference for Herbalife. We believe that it's a huge point of confidence and pride for distributors and it's absolutely a message we want our distributors to push out to consumer throughout the world. Timothy Ramey – D. A. Davidson & Co. : Perfect. Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Scott Vanwinkle with Canaccord. Scott Vanwinkle – Canaccord Genuity Thank you. And congrats on the quarter. A couple of quick follow-ups, that 23% of manufacturing percentage of your sales, so that stays relatively constant until the beginning of 2012 or does it inch up a little bit, trying to think of what that 58 basis points of gross margin improvement do over the next couple of quarters?

John DeSimone

Management

It can inch up but really the next wave is getting international product into that facility and that could be late fourth quarter, early next year. Scott Vanwinkle – Canaccord Genuity: Okay. And John, did you say something about a 20% operating margin target in your prepared comments?

John DeSimone

Management

No, I said a 20%...

Michael Johnson

Management

Well, I sure like that though.

John DeSimone

Management

Okay. Scott Vanwinkle – Canaccord Genuity: I heard that before, so I'm just making sure.

John DeSimone

Management

No, no. So what I've distinguished – what I was trying to distinguish was the short-term contribution from the long-term contribution, right. So in the short-term we have a pretty high contribution margin around, maybe 35%, 40% but we have to reinvest a good portion of that back into support the growth and support our distributor. So long-term contribution margin is looked – we try to manage to 20% and we think that's very achievable. So that's the contribution model from incremental sales from where we were back in keeping 2009 as a base. Scott Vanwinkle – Canaccord Genuity: Okay. And then if we look last year second quarter where you were surprised by volume had the big margin, this year you were very adamant about the margin being down or not repeating last year. And then the big volume comes through. You couldn't have been surprised as much this year as you were last year. And the nature of my question is I would assume the step down sequentially into the back half of the year isn't as steep as it was last year on the margin.

John DeSimone

Management

Well, you have our guidance right, and then we have EPS guidance, you have our tax rate guidance, so you can easily back into your operating profit. You've got a top line guidance. So you can see what our, really range of what the step down or what the margin profile is expected to be for the back half of the year. Scott Vanwinkle – Canaccord Genuity: I guess I was trying to get to the comment of how conservative it was. And then, this quarter you just did 17% volume growth against 20% last year, if I have my numbers correct. You're guiding as you always do prudently in the back half of the year, but with good new distributor and active distributor trends this momentum shouldn't end here. I just – I wonder if there is anything we should think about in the back half other than challenging comparisons when we think of volume growth.

John DeSimone

Management

So we're projecting our guidance volume growth of 13% to 15% in the third quarter, I don't think that's the indication of any lost momentum. I think it's an indication of continued momentum and that is still off a very strong double-digit growth number for last year. So I would characterize it differently then I think you just did so. Scott Vanwinkle – Canaccord Genuity: Okay. And then the last question is a little more bigger picture. You've got a lot of things going. You've got some brand-building efforts, on the advertising, you've got a product story that's new and better than – I think it has been in quite sometime. You got good tools, you got selling methods, what are the distributors telling you right now is making their job easier to drive this acceleration we see in the last two years?

Desmond Walsh

Management

So Scott, I think it's a whole variety of different factors. First of all, you've obviously got a tremendous excitement around Herbalife 24, you've got the increased confidence from seed to feed, you've got the changes in the marketing plan which obviously have made it easier than ever to do the business, grow up the marketing plan and earn a substantial income. You've got the increasing adoption of daily consumption business methods, which is focused on creating permanent customers and obviously from our distributors at permanent customers that obviously drives customer retention, which drives distribution retention which in turn drives recruiting and then when we bring new distributors we've focus again on completing the circle and creating more long-term customers. Also we have improved product access significantly in many countries around the world. And obviously through the clubs, we've actually managed to lower the effective price point and that's opened up the products to a much larger segment of the population. So, and then wrapping around all of those you've got distributor confidence because obviously when you put all those things together what it means that our distributors have lots to talk about, lots of things happening, and then obviously we've supported this confidence with a whole variety of tools from biz works, to online application and so on. So, really, you know, every corner that you look at there is positive things out there, I think, all of that is contributing to the momentum that we're seeing and that we believe we'll continue to see, you know, in the future. Scott Vanwinkle – Canaccord Genuity: Thanks. And Des, you compared China, the transition in China to Brazil, does this play out probably in the same way as far as duration of when you see the volume really starts to pick up?

Desmond Walsh

Management

You know, that's really not possible to tell Scott frankly, because no two markets are identical. Certainly, it's indicative and obviously we're confident about that happening in China because we've been through it before. But as to when it will happen, the curve, that's really impossible to say. But we're particularly excited frankly about what's happening in Mexico. Because if you think about Mexico, here we are, you know, 8 years since the introduction of daily consumption in the clubs there and we have the highest volume a quarter in Mexico's history. So, for us as we look to the future, you know, that's very exciting because it gives us, if Mexico is the leading indicator at 5 volume point and record growth 8 years in and then obviously that tells us, we've got a lot of runway ahead of us. Scott Vanwinkle – Canaccord Genuity: Thank you.

Michael Johnson

Management

Okay. We have time for two more questions.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Ferrara with Bank of America. Christopher Ferrara – Bank of America, Merrill Lynch: Hey guys, thanks. I know, I guess we've all taken a swing at this question in the past. But I want to try to get knew from a different angle, right I mean. The same store sales concept. So if you take Mexico in particular and obviously the momentum has been really good to your point. And it's the place you've been longest with the concept and that's great. I guess, is there any chance of you know, even roughly disaggregating what the growth looks like right now between new geographies, I mean, are you expanding in different directions versus filling in between geographies versus driving more club visits per club g-er. How do we think about that stuff in Mexico right now?

Desmond Walsh

Management

Yeah. So, Chris, part of our strategy for the Herblife decade and getting to the you know, Michael's, goal or Herblife decade of 10 billion volume points is lighter and deeper. And obviously wider represents more countries, deeper represents increasing volume points in every market. So, in Mexico as in all our major markets we've adopted this concept of regionalization and regionalization means that we are focused with our distributor leaders and the company working together in increasing volume points on a city-by-city basis. So, if you look at many of our market historically, we've been focused on the larger cities, now we've broken Mexico into numerous regions, we have assigned an internal person responsible for working closely with our distributor leaders in that sub region they are now based not out of our head offices, but they are based in the field. So, everyday, they are working with distributor leaders, they're planning local promotions, they're visiting clubs, and they're all contributing to the sense of working together with our distributor leaders to growth the business. So, I think that's one of the things that we are seeing and, you know, we're seeing that obviously not just in Mexico, but many other countries. Along with that obviously, we're expanding our access points in support of that visualization strategy. And lastly, you know, as always we're working with the distributor leaders to expand and promote great ideas. So, and that really is what continues to drive the business, it's that unique relationship that we have with our distributors working locally city-by-city. Christopher Ferrara – Bank of America, Merrill Lynch: But and I guess, if you think about your volume growth in the quarter, I mean, can you give a rough idea of how much of that was the increase volume point in the same areas where you already, currently have clubs versus getting new clubs out there?

John DeSimone

Management

Chris, we don't break it out that way, it's, there is a lot of activity, I mean, Des just spoke for two minutes and all the good things that are going on in just one country and it all works together. Christopher Ferrara – Bank of America, Merrill Lynch: And is it just because you don't want to, I mean, you don't want to talk that granularity of it, get to that level of granularity or –

John DeSimone

Management

I've already started – Christopher Ferrara – Bank of America, Merrill Lynch: And I just start to figure out too, right, I mean –

John DeSimone

Management

Well, so the one thing we have access to that we don't disclose is, our volume point activity by city and by state within each region, so we do know our penetration rates by sub region, we know, we have a going up, but that's not information that is something we want to share, it's very competitive intelligence. Christopher Ferrara – Bank of America, Merrill Lynch: No, understood, understood that make sense. And I guess –

John DeSimone

Management

We can break it out geographically internally; it's really difficult to break out one initiative because there is not just one initiative going on in any marketplace. Christopher Ferrara – Bank of America, Merrill Lynch: That make sense, I appreciate that. And I guess your, the penetration levels you're seeing, if you're going to small geographical areas right, I mean, just broadly speaking, it's Mexico the place where you have the most penetrated areas for Nutritional Clubs? Like in other words the city in Mexico, or town in Mexico or is that, is that where the best Nutritional Clubs are, the highest volume clubs are?

John DeSimone

Management

Yeah, so in answer to your question. Again, not an exact signs, but directionally, now we believe that there are even cities there in United States where we have actually a deeper penetration in specific cities. For example, we know one community in the northern part of United States where we believe that as many as 20% of the people in the community are regular Nutrition Club members. So, you know, so we have similar situations in Russia, Brazil and India and Korea also where we've got very high concentration of clubs with very, very deep penetration. And again, by the way, even historically, you know, that in Iceland, we've had you know, penetration rates up, 18, 19 volume points per person and that in a country of whatever 400,000 to 500,000 people. So, in terms of where the – if you're looking to see where is the ceiling, I'm not sure there is a ceiling. But, you know, we have markets out there where we've got close on 20 volume points per person. And that's why we say, even in Mexico with 5 volume points per person, you know, there is a lot of opportunity for growth still ahead. Christopher Ferrara – Bank of America, Merrill Lynch: No, no, I appreciate that. I guess, what I'm trying – what I'm trying to get, I know it's not the easiest thing. That path from 5 to 20, I mean, does that necessitate going to places. It's a big part of that going to places where you're not, biggest penetration maybe at 20 in the good part of that country and I'm not sure it's not in a large part of the country. But you know, what I'm saying.

Desmond Walsh

Management

And that's why the opportunity exists throughout Mexico. And you know, we share information of local base of the distributor leaders to help them identify areas. But the reality is even in the areas frankly, where we have the deepest penetration, we believe that we're no where close to what that connects out us. Christopher Ferrara – Bank of America, Merrill Lynch: Great, thanks a lot guys.

Michael Johnson

Management

Thank you. One more question please.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Anand Vankawala with Avondale Partners. Anand Vankawala – Avondale Partners: Hi, thanks for taking my question, just had two quick questions. The first one, just on repurchase activity and where do you see that going forward. You know, we had a pretty big jump in the second quarter after no activity in the first quarter. Are we going to be reverting back to the typical $50 million per quarter or you know, what type of run rate do we expect?

John DeSimone

Management

I can tell you, $50 million per quarter is what's assumed in our guidance. If we decide to accelerate beyond that, then you'll know after the fact. Anand Vankawala – Avondale Partners: All right. And then, just one quick follow up on China. I think it was Des that said that there is currently roughly 1,000 clubs in China. I'm just wondering what that was last year, so I can get some type of growth?

Desmond Walsh

Management

It was you know, directionally, you know, our club numbers are still you know, in exact science and on because obviously we are introducing a notification project so that we can get a better handle on this. Probably, I would say about 10% less than that. But again, you know, we hesitate to give exact numbers because – it's not an exact science today. Anand Vankawala – Avondale Partners: Perfect, thanks guys, great quarter.

Michael Johnson

Management

Yeah, I'd just like to close with a couple of comments. One thing we don't talk about much is our bench strength in this company. And we're really proud, not only of new distributors that are coming into the company but some of the great new young and talented employees in science areas and areas of manufacturing, finance are coming from really the best of class companies. We're seeing an unbelievable migration of strength into our company right now. We're very excited about that. Obviously the developing of new generation of leaders within the company and the distributor base makes us very exciting. So, we've got a great future ahead of us. And I know this is a redundant statement from us, but truly the best is yet to come. And we just want to thank you all for your support and your continued interest in Herbalife. Now we get back to work. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

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