Herbalife is a global nutrition and personal care company, mainly devoted to the manufacture of nutritional products and cosmetics. Its marketing system is focused on direct sales by independent distributors, who conduct business in more than 80 countries worldwide.
FERREREadvised Herbalife on the design of the corporate structure and its implementation, the setting up of the office (lease and services agreements), hiring of personnel, management of the relationship with local distributors and obtaining of the operating license for the company and the certificate of registry for its products.
Leticia Aguiar, member of the FERREREteam that assisted Herbalife, comments:
“The design of the corporate structure requires a deep understanding of the client’s business model and of the local regulatory environment. In this case, we needed to be flexible enough so as to be attractive for independent distributors, and at the same time conservative enough so as to insure full compliance with Uruguayan regulations.
The increasing concern about personal care and wellness has spurred a fast development of nutritional products companies worldwide. Many of those companies are interested in expanding their operations to Uruguay. In order for this to become a reality, it is essential that Uruguay moves ahead fast on its update of sanitary registration regulations for this type of products.
One of the main challenges of the Herbalife project was obtaining the proper categorization for the products to be registered with the Health Authority, as registration regulations for nutritional products are only now being updated. This meant that we had to “create” categories that are recognized internationally but not yet formally included in the regulations.
Herbalife is more than willing to continue working closely with the Uruguayan authorities on the update of the regulations with the goal of incorporating internationally accepted standards”.