Vega has some product overlap, but it's not really an apples-to-apples comparison with MSLP. It's not a sports nutrition company, it's a premium dietary supplement/weight management/fortified-functional foods company. Vega was also profitable and not under investigation by the SEC (though most of the downside risk of this seems to have mitigated). The huge premium was probably based on the idea that this is a brand that could be rolled out into every grocery store in America and Canada tomorrow. Even so, the premium still seems really high.
A lot of the people on this forum don't seem to have a strong grasp of the sports nutrition or dietary supplements markets. They are not the same. Sales of dietary supplements and weight management are significantly higher in every major market than sports nutrition (confirmed by every major market research company: Euromonitor, Packaged Facts, Mintel, etc.). The consumer base is much larger for better-for-you, food-like products than for performance-boosting products. To put it simply, soccer moms and 20-something yogis don't buy 5 pound tubs of "muscle builing" protein powders, pre-workouts or creatine. The Vega Sport line is a very small part of Vega's overall portfolio, which, as a whole, is far more mass-consumer friendly than MusclePharm's.
The best recent comparisons for any takeover conjecture are Cytosport, Dymatize and Isopure. Cytosport sold at a suprisingly low premium, while Dymatize and Isopure came in about 2x sales. However, Dymatize is profitable and had recently acquired the mass-facing brand Supreme Protein. Dymatize also has best-in-class, in-house manufacturing.
TL;DR: Vega caught a shockingly high premium, and isn't a great comparison to MusclePharm. Anyone who sees the WWAV acquisition as positive confirmation of a US$1 billion market cap for MSLP is delusional.
