Mark Hughes was the founder of Herbalife, a multi-level marketing company that sells nutritional supplements.
But what was the story behind Hughes and what was his net worth?
Who was Mark Hughes?
Mark Hughes was born in La Mirada, California in 1956.
His parents divorced when he was 14, and his mother retained custody.
The pair were forced to survive on just welfare payments as Hughes’ mother suffered from depression.
At the age of 15, Hughes dropped out of school and started using drugs, “I was a little delinquent. I got in trouble with the law,” he said.
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At the age of 16, he was sent to CEDU High School, a private school for troubled youngsters.
Part of Hughes’ CEDU syllabus was for him to raise money by selling raffle tickets.
Hughes excelled and quickly became the school’s best salesman.
Hughes said: “The approval there was based on how much funds you raised.
“There was a lot of pressure, and I wanted to be the best right away.”
But aged 19, Hughes’ mother died of an accidental drug overdose. Her doctor told the coroner she “was known to over-ingest her prescription drugs.”
Aged 20, Hughes started selling diet products for Seyforth Laboratories and spent three years there.
After Seyforth Laboratories shut up shop, he joined Golden Youth who sold exercise equipment and weight-control products.
But they too went bust, forcing Hughes to start his own business.
In 1980, aged just 24, Hughes founded Herbalife, with the goal of changing the nutritional habits of the world.
Hughes sold his first product, a protein shake, from the trunk of his car but had much bigger plans.
He soon developed a direct-marketing strategy that incentivized ‘distributors’ to market the product to new customers.
By 1982, Herbalife was doing over $2 million in sales per year.
Thousands of people started selling Herbalife products door-to-door around the US and the company’s slogan “Lose Weight Now, Ask Me How”, became a pop-culture catchphrase.
But in March 1985, the California attorney general and the state Department of Health charged Hughes and Herbalife with making “untrue or misleading” claims around their products and operating an “endless chain marketing scheme”.
Hughes eventually reached a settlement in 1986 and agreed to pay $850,000.
By the early 90s, Herbalife’s annual revenue surpassed $1 billion and when the company went public on the NASDAQ in 1996, Hughes’ 26 per cent stake was worth $250 million.
On May 21, 2000, Hughes died at his home in Malibu, California aged just 44 after a four-day drinking binge.
The coroner found he died of an overdose of alcohol and a toxic level of doxepin, an antidepressant.
What was Mark Hughes’ net worth?
Mark Hughes had a net worth of $400 million at the time of his death.
His then 9-year-old son, Alexander Hughes, was named sole beneficiary of his estate.
By 2000, his real estate portfolio alone was worth more than $100 million.
Hughes owned a $25 million beachfront mansion in Malibu and a $30 million home in Beverly Hills called Grayhall.
In 2002, Herbalife was acquired for $685 million by J.H. Whitney & Company and Golden Gate Capital.