(Adds statement from Herbalife executive, paragraphs 7-9)
NEW YORK, Sept 11 (Reuters) - William Ackman, head of hedge fund firm Pershing Square Capital Management, said on Friday that stocks were cheap at current levels and that Mondelez International Inc could be an acquisition target.
"I think stocks are pretty cheap," Ackman told cable business channel CNBC, but he excluded energy stocks since he was not an investor in the sector.
He said he was "a little more bullish" on the stock market than fellow hedge fund manager David Tepper of Appaloosa Management. Tepper told CNBC on Thursday he could not call himself a bull on stocks for next year.
On Mondelez, Ackman said: "Either the current team will get the business to its potential in reasonably rapid fashion, or it will be a target." Ackman has built a stake worth about $5.5 billion in Mondelez, the maker of Cadbury chocolate and Oreo cookies.
Ackman, who first announced a $1 billion short bet against Herbalife Ltd and accused the company of being a pyramid scheme in 2012, said: "the last way we win here is just basic business deterioration."
Herbalife has repeatedly denied Ackman's claims.
Alan Hoffman, executive vice president of global corporate affairs at Herbalife, referred in an emailed statement to a Fortune article published Sept. 9 entitled "The siege of Herbalife":
"After an exhaustive six-month review of Herbalife and Bill Ackman's campaign of manipulation, a campaign that according to the Wall Street Journal is under criminal investigation, Fortune Editor Alan Murray said it best when he said the reporter's story was 'deeply reported, scrupulously fair and beautifully told' as well as 'deeply disturbing' because 'Ackman's campaign against Herbalife seems a step too far.'"
"Despite this unprecedented and three-year attack, millions of people around the world continue to enjoy our products every day and last quarter we enjoyed growth in 5 of our top 10 markets."
Global financial markets have been rattled in recent weeks by fears over China's slowdown, with all three major U.S. stock indexes posting losses of at least 3 percent last week.
Ackman's Pershing Square Holdings portfolio dropped 9.2 percent in August, sources familiar with the numbers have said.
(Reporting by Sam Forgione; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and David Gregorio)