NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Investors are wondering whether Herbalife (HLF) - Get Report will be taken private after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a $200 million settlement today with the global nutrition company, over charges of misrepresentation and concluded it is not a pyramid scheme, CNBC's Scott Wapner reported on "Squawk Box" Friday.

Per the settlement, Herbalife "must completely change how it operates." One of the ways it will do this is by reporting how much product is sold, according to Wapner.

In addition, "as part of this settlement, Herbalife has given Carl Icahn the ability to own a larger portion of stock," Wapner stated, noting this is significant to whether the company decides to stop trading publicly.

Icahn currently owns 18% of the company's shares. The business mogul could previously own up to 25% of Herbalife stock, but can now own as much as 34.99% of shares, Wapner explained.

Wapner questioned if this will make it easier for the company to go private since Icahn has the ability to increase his ownership to just shy of 35%. He also wondered whether a private equities firm or "another group of folks" tied to Icahn could push Herbalife to go private.

Shares of Herbalife are rising by 12.87% to $67 early this morning.

Separately, TheStreet Ratings rated Herbalife as a "buy" with a score of B.

This is driven by a number of strengths, which can be seen in multiple areas, such as its notable return on equity, expanding profit margins, solid stock price performance, impressive record of earnings per share growth and increase in net income. TheStreet Ratings feels its strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had generally high debt management risk by most measures that we evaluated.

You can view the full analysis from the report here: HLF

TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author.

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