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Jorge Vergara, a 46-year-old Mexican entrepreneur who never went to college and never wears socks, is considering buying The Body Shop, the British chain that prides itself on not using animals to test its all-natural hair and skin products. The price tag: around $500 million. The company, which was founded by environmental activist Anita Roddick, was once a fairy-tale story of the retail business, but in the past year its profits have taken a dive. Vergara started his own company, Omnilife, with $10,000 in 1991. Last year sales of its vitamin-packed drink mixes reached $600 million. Based in Mexico, the company sells its products across Latin America--and increasingly in the United States and Europe. At its heart are 1.2 million door-to-door distributors, scores of whom filed through Vergara's office in Guadalajara last week, lavishing him with hugs and praise, as he spoke with NEWSWEEK's Alan Zarembo. Excerpts:
VERGARA: They just became wholesalers. Eighty percent are part time. They don't want to be millionaires. If you tell them, "You can have a Mercedes-Benz and a house in Beverly Hills," they will ask you, "How do I pay my rent and get my food?" We try to help people meet their needs, not fill them with dreams.
We call it the socks theory. When I was young, I just stopped using socks, and I found out that I don't get any fungus on my feet and they don't burn. When I tried to find out why we use socks, I didn't find an answer. The feet and the hands are the thermostat of the body. Men get sicker than women because women don't wear socks. Their shoes are more open. And women' s feet don't stink. A lot of people in the company have discovered the same thing. But I don't want to promote it, because the sock industry is going to come down hard on me.
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I got fat and sick from eating the pork. I started looking for herbs, healthy products to lose weight and feel better, but there wasn't much around. I got a chance through a friend to know Herbalife. I became a good distributor and made money. But then I decided it was time to start my own company.
I take it every day. We have over a million distributors and 5 million customers.
We have the same philosophy in the sense of how a company should behave toward the community. They came to us, and we were interested because they have almost 2,000 stores in countries we are not in. They used to have attendants in stores who were very informed about the products--a form of multilevel marketing. You got all the explanations about the mud from Africa or the Indians who made this or that product.
They got these people who started changing the presentation of the products--from very natural and simple to very expensive and complicated. They lost track of the customers. They lost loyalty. They started taking away the products people liked. I used to use an aloe gel that was discontinued.
Sure. How many people are interested in losing weight? How many people are interested in having energy? Having more memory?
I wanted to make Guadalajara a center of attention in the world. I am a follower of architecture, and I saw how Bilbao arrived on the map, even with lousy weather and violence. We needed 11 buildings, so I said, "Why don't we have the best 11 architects in the world?"
I don't like it either. I side with her on animals. But I have to respect the culture here. We made a deal with the city to host their October festival, a very big event in Guadalajara. They needed a cockfighting ring.
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