脱口秀女王高调投资轻体公司

脱口秀女王高调投资轻体公司

美国脱口秀女王Oprah Winfrey 19日买进全球最大的轻体连锁之一慧俪轻体（Weight Watchers）10% 的股份，同时高调宣布加入该公司董事会。引来公众争相购买该公司的股票，股价由6.79美元升到13.92美元，令奥普拉一日内大赚4500万美元（折合人民币2.8亿元）。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

wholesomeness 健康

ingredients 要素

nourishment 营养

clout 影响力

reinvigorate 振兴

Weight Watchers shares surge after Oprah Winfrey buys 10% stake（605words）

By Lindsay Whipp in Chicago

Oprah Winfrey has taken a 10 per cent stake in Weight Watchers,more than doubling the dieting service group's market value in a day amid expectations that the former queen of American daytime television will help revive earnings from a 15-year low.

Ms Winfrey,who has been frank about her struggles with weight loss,bought newly issued shares representing 10 per cent of the group's outstanding stock at $6.79 apiece,for $43.2m. The shares closed up $7.13 or 105 per cent at $13.92.

The surge in the shares erased much of their decline over the past year and more than doubled the value of Ms Winfrey's stake. She also received options to acquire an additional 5 per cent.

Weight Watchers has struggled with a fundamental shift in the way people tackle weight loss,with an increasing focus on wholesomeness and natural ingredients,amid a growing perception that diets lack nourishment. It is a change that has pushed Weight Watchers' sales to a five-year low and net income to the lowest in at least 15 years,and has forced companies such as Nestlé to rethink its Lean Cuisine frozen food brand as revenues decline.“We are expanding our purpose from focusing on weight loss alone to more broadly helping people lead a healthier,happier life,” said chief executive Jim Chambers.

Those interested in health and wellness are also increasingly turning to apps such as Nike's RunKeeper,My Fitness Pal and Lose It to guide them. Weight Watchers also has its own apps,which Ms Winfrey has started using for the first time along with a company personal coach.

“Weight Watchers has given me the tools to begin to make the lasting shift that I and so many of us who are struggling with weight have longed for,” Ms Winfrey said. Weight Watchers has not been short of celebrity endorsers,which have included Jennifer Hudson,the 2007 Oscar winner,who lost 80 pounds and appeared on Ms Winfrey's eponymous TV show in 2011 to discuss her experience.* The company has also featured singer Jessica Simpson.

But Weight Watchers is betting that the considerable clout that Ms Winfrey,who has an estimated net worth of $3bn,will bring to the company will reinvigorate it. Her daytime TV show would haul in ratings of around 13m at its peak,and although she abdicated her throne in 2011,she is still very much in the public eye,as a media mogul,actress,producer and philanthropist.

She will join Weight Watchers' board and act as an adviser,adding her perspective to the programme and its content. The company also said it planned to feature Ms Winfrey in its marketing.

She described her decades-long battle with weight loss,detailing how she received in 1988 the highest ratings for her show at the time after losing 67lb and wheeling in a wagon of fat on stage. However,her weight continued to fluctuate radically after that and she was diagnosed with hypothyroidism.

“With all the other things that I know how to do and all the other things that I'm so great at and all the other accomplishments,I can't believe I'm still talking about weight,” she said in a 2009 interview in her own magazine.

Weight Watchers was founded in a New York basement in 1963,was acquired by Heinz in 1978 and subsequently bought by Dutch group Artal in a leveraged buyout in 1999. It was listed in 2001.

Additional reporting by Richard Blackden and Mackenzie Weinger

* The article has been amended to correct the name of the celebrity who appeared on Ms Winfrey's show to Jennifer Hudson