Herbalife International is a global nutrition, weight-loss and skin-care company. The company was founded in 1980 and it employs around 4,000 people worldwide. Herbalife reported net sales of USD 2.7 billion in 2010. Though incorporated in the Cayman Islands

Cayman Islands

The Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory and overseas territory of the European Union located in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman, located south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica...

, its corporate headquarters are in Los Angeles, US.

The company distributes its products in 76 countries through a network of approximately 2.1 million independent distributors, some of whom earn profit on product sales and additional commission from a multi-level marketing

Multi-level marketing

Multi-level marketing is a marketing strategy in which the sales force is compensated not only for sales they personally generate, but also for the sales of others they recruit, creating a downline of distributors and a hierarchy of multiple levels of compensation...

 (MLM) compensation structure.
In February 1980, Mark Hughes

Mark R. Hughes

Mark Reynolds Hughes was an American businessman who was founder, chairman and CEO of Herbalife International Ltd.- Early life :...

 began selling the original Herbalife weight loss product from the trunk of his car.