Is USANA Health Sciences a Fraud?

USANA (USNA) is a health and beauty company. It produces, researches, and sells health and beauty products mostly through a Multi-Level Marketing operation (direct selling). Its growth has been phenomenal and it has been publicly traded since 1992.

Its stock has appreciated from $.60 a share in 2002 to a high of over $60 a share just within the past few months. In the past few months all sorts of negative news have come out, the biggest being that ex-convict Barry Minkow has published a 500 page negative report on USANA basically saying it's a fraud, and the SEC has opened up an investigation into USANA. There were also new class action lawsuits announced late last month.

Addressing the Multi-Level Marketing Scheme Accusation
When I read about and watched a YouTube video of how USANA has supposedly lied to new associates about the money they can make, I just thought to myself of all the same schemes or businesses my friends/associates throughout the years have offered me. Some lie, some just only talk about the positives, no one ever talks about the negative aspects and how tough it actually is to make it as an associate and make a lot of money (for Usana, the top 3% of distributors make 70% of the commissions). When I did ask a question about the risk involved, there is a change of topic or somehow the question is not answered. If the new associate/distributor does its own research or actually thinks about what it's being told, there would be a lot less people signing up. I have never been involved in a MLM operation, but I would guess there are specific directions they follow when answering questions regarding risk. There obviously is an issue with USANA's MLM, but I think it will pass, it is just temporary negativity.

Click here for an interview with an actual USANA Distributor or “Victim” as Barry Minkow calls her.

Regarding the Product Problems
I am more worried about the product issues. Barry Minkow said in his report that some of the products fall short of the claims made on the labels for ingredients. This is from Barry Minkow’s report for the Usana’s product Essential Mega Antioxidant:

Folate (as folic acid) claimed 500 pgs per serving and only tested for 390
pgs per serving.

Vitamin B-12 (as cyanocobalamin) fell significantly short from the claimed 100 pgs per serving and only tested for 63.8 pgs per serving.

Alpha Lipoic Acid fell short by 8% from the claimed potency on the box.

By far the most serious and significant shortage resulted from the mega antioxidant ingredient Coenzyme Q-10, which scored only 14% of the “guaranteed potency.”

The other issue with the products is that, according to Barry Minkow, the prices are extremely high compared to similar products. One example is USANA HealthPak 100, taken from Barry Minkow’s report:

The Usana product has a regular wholesale price of $118.89 for a 28 day supply, while
the Animal Pak product has a price of $18.50 for a 22 day supply.
Usana 28 day supply @ $ 118.89 = $ 4.25 daily cost
Animal 22 day supply @ $ 18.50 = $ 0.84 daily cost
As you can see, the Usana daily cost of $4.25 is $3.41 more per day than the Animal Pak,
or 406% more expensive.

There are a significant amount of other products that laboratories compared and the USANA product was clearly more expensive when the potency of the two products were similar. There were also issues where the potency did not match the label claims.

Valuation
Its trailing price/earnings ratio is 17.07 and its forward price/earnings ratio for fiscal year 2008 is 13.32; both are great numbers for a company growing as fast as USANA. The PEG ratio is .86. Its gross margins for the past 3 years have increased from 75.2% to 76.1%, most of its costs are associate incentives/commissions and SG&A expenses. Its operating earnings have been 16.6%, 18.1%, and 16.6% for the past 3 years. It has a very strong balance sheet with over $32 million of cash and cash equivalents on its books and no debt. Its growth has been phenomenal with sales going from just over $133 million in 2002 to just over $374 million in 2006, that is over 29% per year. Just recently on April 10th, it announced an increase in its stock buyback program to $65 million.

Technicals
To put it mildly, it’s been trending down in the past few months. Volume has been big in distribution days, all of the momentum is down. This is not the place to buy. USNA is close to support from last summer at around $37.50 a share, which is a good level to keep an eye on it. The down trend is not confirmed yet by the moving averages, but the 50DMA is getting ready to cross the 200DMA this week and that will be the confirmation.

Conclusion
The negativity this company is currently experiencing is tremendous. The stock price is definitely displaying it, some of it is definitely unwarranted. The issues I am worried about are its products, some of which do not support its claims and which are much more expensive than comparable products for other brands. If what Barry Minkow said in his report about its products is true, I expect to see margin pressures from USANA trying to increase its products' potency to match the claims on the products and from price pressure since comparable products are so much cheaper (Its 1st quarter results had no signs of these pressures as gross margins increased by 220 basis points compared to its 1st quarter results in 2006).

I would avoid this stock for now and wait to see what happens to its sales, earnings, and margins in a full quarter after the accusations. The technical picture does not look great at this point either.

USNA 1-yr chart:

Disclosure: I don't have a position in USNA.

Comments

[terrihamel]

Alex, you need to contact USANA Health Sciences! Talk to Dr. Myron Wentz yourself. You will understand that what Barry Minkow is saying about the dosages is absolutely incorrect! PLEASE ASK THE SCIENTISTS THEMSELVES! They support all their claims through long-term, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies published in mainstream medical journals. Dr. Wentz just won the Albert Einstein award in Jerusalem. They're affiliated with the Linus Pauling Institute. And Barry Minkow is a convicted felon. Alex, please connect the dots!
Sincerely,
Terri
terrihameldotusanadotc...

[terrihamel]

USANA: Straight Up

If you're not aware of the recent 'controversy' surrounding USANA Health Sciences, you've been missing an interesting series of articles. I am writing here as someone who has been taking the products for nearly a decade, so I'm not unbiased. I've recovered my costs in marketing USANA vitamins to friends and family, but have yet to make a serious stab at the business. I don't know if having consumed their products is supposed to disqualify me from making comments or asking questions, but I'm going to take a stab at it anyway. In spite of the fact that I'm not a stock analyst, self-proclaimed or otherwise, I'd like to share my perspective from an 'inside' point of view. I'll keep it simple, so even the most intelligent can grasp it. Don't look for technical brilliance, but I think it's a story worth hearing.

I'm a teacher. If you know anything about schools, they're germ factories. For a variety of reasons, genetic and otherwise, I've never had a strong constitution. Plainly put, I used to catch everything the kids brought into the building, and then some. One day I was visiting my older sister, and noticed a product catalog for a nutritional supplementation company sitting on her coffee table. Everything in it was footnoted and referenced back to long-term, placebo-controlled, double-blind studies published in mainstream medical journals. Having completed six years of university, I was curious, and asked her about it. She told me flat out that the people next door, who had left her the catalog, were pushing a pyramid scheme. I nodded knowingly, having no idea what that was supposed to be, waited until they left the house, hightailed it over to the neighbors' place and banged on the door.

They were happy to see me (you probably guessed that already). I sat down with them for over an hour as they told me their story. Their daughter had been suffering from a certain health problem that traditional medicine hadn't been able to help. Someone told them about the products. Their daughter took them and, over the course of several months, her health dramatically improved. Causation or correlation? I didn't care. What was there to lose? Not my health, that was for sure. There was one catch, however. These people wouldn't sell me any product. They wanted me to sign up with them in their business.

Big mistake. I've since learned that this goes against on of the most important aspects of building a network marketing business, which is to have a solid base of preferred customers (these people were not following the company's compliance protocol: USANA is relentless in emphasizing the importance of bringing in loyal product users. I wanted the product badly enough, however, that I signed up with them to get my initial order. Once it arrived, I quit... but I had my vitamins).

Within a matter of weeks, taking the product religiously, I experienced a profound change in my health. Colds didn't seem to stick. I slept better and had more energy. Did taking the product cause, or merely correlate with, the changes in my health? Who cared? All I knew was that I wasn't getting sick all the time.

Then I ran out of vitamins. Not only did I run out but, before too long, I was catching colds again. Seriously. By this time, I'd twigged onto the fact that ordinary people could actually sell this stuff. Now I was curious about the whole enchilada. I somehow ended up in Vancouver, British Columbia at a marketing seminar led by one Michael Oliver (google away for more). I sat in the back of the room with a bucket of school assignments and starting grading them as he began to speak. Fifteen minutes later I put up my hand and told the group that I was putting the bucket away. I'm sure there were people in the room who thought I was a plant. The fact was that his seminar was complete devoid of hype. I'm proud to say that Michael Oliver eventually became a deeply respected friend, but that's another story.

Six months later, I chose a different person with whom to sign up. Any teacher can explain why I never did get around to building much of a business. Evenings and weekends were recovery time. I loved my job, as well as my students, but I simply didn't have time for anything else. Ironically, I now realize that, during those years of taking the product each month but doing little to sell it, I was one of thousands who were dragging down the company's distributor earnings ratio. You see, I qualified as an associate but, as far as USANA's computers knew, I might as well have been out there trying to build a business and failing miserably (if it was truly a pyramid scheme, I might have been raking in some money simply through my position on the totem pole). The truth was that I wasn't getting paid (much) because I wasn't doing the business (much).

Last year I moved from Canada to the United States, having met (at the 1999 USANA convention, of all places) and married the man who became my best friend, a wonderful American whose story closely parallels mine. I've recently been training with some of the most successful people in USANA (it's free, and available to all associates), and I'm planning on giving the business a serious go this time. But I'm under no illusions that anyone's going to do this for me. "If it's to be, it's up to me." (I understand that some people, having ignored USANA's Business Development System and tried to reinvent the wheel, haven't done so well and are now jumping on the lawsuit bandwagon).

One thing: I've yet to read a posting where one of your analysts, citing the allegations of Barry Minkow (a convicted felon, no less) has approached USANA's founder, Dr. Myron Wentz, for his response to such allegations as, for example, the alleged inaccuracies in product labeling. It's curious, given that Dr. Wentz's ongoing work continues to be published in mainstream medical journals, that your commentators are relying on the words of a convicted felon rather than going to the source and asking for documentation. That would require a bit more work, but don't you think it makes sense (particularly when you learn that USANA is affiliated with the Linus Pauling Institute, that Dr. Wentz just picked up the Albert Einstein award in Jerusalem, and that the company has garnered numerous other accolades of which they could rightfully boast)?

But then, I'm not a stock analyst. Nonetheless, I still think a teacher should be allowed to express an opinion. And stories are the backbone of life.

Terri

CatchingWaves@excite.c...

[catkins]

I am a nutritionist - the reason why your health improved after taking the supplements is because you were deficient in certain vitamins and minerals. You could have bought the same items far cheaper and still had the same results. Many of my clients have used/are using Usana but do equally well on store bought supplements. My issue with Usana is that ANYONE can sell it. However, there is no consultation or identification of need and very often people are spending a fortune on something that they do not need and will be of no benefit to them. Worse still, there are certain medical conditions where mis-prescribing particular supplements can lead to serious health issues. One of my clients had a serious bowel condition, made much worse by the supplements he had been recommended to take by a Usana agent (confirmed by his specialist at the hospital). I am not saying that Usana is a bad product but the focus is on selling as much as you can, rather than identifying what the individual might need, or (more importantly) what they should avoid!!

[3rdstreethouse]

I was a USANA rep, and I have to say I regret the day I joined the company. Weather the products are good or not is really beside that point. The main thrust of USANA is that it is an MLM company much the same as Amway. I know the leaders in USANA will say its not like Amway but in reality, it is completely modeled after Amway. Everything from the pin levels to the conventions to chasing your friends and family. Or if you are in the "Internet" mode of USANA, you are shelling out cashola for "marketing" by buying google ads or leads. But I digress. USANA = Amway plain in simple. If you want to be one those people that are so consumed with greed that you will carry on USANA's culture of non-disclosure, knock yourself out. But I would urge all struggling USANA reps to read a free ebook called "Merchants of Deception" (just google it and yes, it's free). It is story of an ex-Amway rep but if you read it, and you don't get a very sick feeling in your gut as you see your MLM expericene with USANA unfold in this man's story, I'll give you 100 bucks!

[The Shadow]

Hi 3rdStreetHouse,

Judging from the number of incorrectly spelled words, wrong words, and typos in your post, I find myself wondering if you really studied hard to work your Usana business professionally. Perhaps I'm mistaken. Did you work hand-in-hand with your upline and others on a daily business for months? Did you study closely USANA's "Policies & Procedures"? How long were you in USANA?

Your blanket comparison of Amway/Quixtar and USANA is way off base. Even a casual glimpse of the differences between their compensation plans, the quality of the products, the ratings given them in independent sources of comparison, the science behind USANA vs almost nil for Amway/Quixtar, and so on would have instantly revealed USANA's vast superiority!

Personally speaking, I've never spent a single cent on "leads" from any source. Never found them necessary! Nor have I spent much money at all buying marketing tools. By the way, CDs and DVDs in USANA cost around $1 or less up to $1 and a half or so...whereas, from what I hear, Amway's materials costs a lot!

I've also never had to "chase down" my friends and family. They know I'm knowledgeable in wellness promotion and disease prevention and can trust me to give them my honest opinion! As a result, some have decided to use the USANA products and/or do the business, while some have not...both of which are super fine with me since they did so as a consequence of being informed.

Wishing you the best!
The Shadow

[USANAvitaminsDistributor]

Anyone can say anything in a report....show the actual studies /tests
This is a great time to buy usana stock, its at a low point with upward tendency

the usana vitamins are of great nutritinal quality fully tested by the most prestigious labs in the world such as Consumer Labs

wealthclub.usana.com

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[elva]

Overall USANA is a caring company with many great people and alliances. It's by far not perfect, but overall it’s a good company. They have a 250,000 square foot manufacturing facility that voluntarily manufactures its products to pharmaceutical standards. They do use a legitimate network marketing go to market strategy of direct sales.

hsb.usana.com

[User 169945]

To Alex: You really ought to do your homework before you write articles such as these. First of all, Usana is a network marketing company, not MLM. (Yes, there is a difference.) But in any case, NM and MLM are legitimate business models, not "schemes". It's true that there are some MLM/NM companies that are run illegally and unethically -- but then, that is true of all types of businesses.

What I have the most problem with is that the bulk of your analysis of Usana relies on the say-so of Barry "The Rat" Minkow, a known felon and scam artist who was hoping to make a killing by discrediting MLM/NM companies and then sell those stocks short.

To 3rdstreethouse: I have been in Amway, and I am currently in Usana. There is NO comparison as far as I am concerned! In Amway, I found non-disclosure and deception to be the norm, probably due to the fact that it was nearly impossible for the average person to make any money under their compansation plan. Usana, on the other hand, has a top-notch compensation plan, and I've never been given false claims or gross exaggerations by the management or any other distributors.