Herbalife Ltd., the nutrition company under federal investigation for allegations of fostering a pyramid scheme, said it overstated the growth of new customers and distributors last year because of database errors.<br />The shares slumped in early trading.<br />A metric called active new members increased 3.2 percent worldwide in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, not the 16.7 percent cited on a Feb. 25 conference call, the Los Angeles-based company said in a regulatory filing Thursday.<br />U.S. active new members increased 30.7 percent, not the 71 percent mentioned on the call, Herbalife said.<br />Those were among more than two dozen instances of misstated statistics, according to the filing.
