$18M powder keg

Game on between MusclePharm and hedgie

A struggling protein-powder maker once promoted by Tiger Woods and Colin Kaepernick is readying for one of its toughest battles yet — against a Boston-based hedge fund.

MusclePharm, led by Ryan Drexler, will face off in court this week against hedgie Todd Enright’s White Winston — which owns a 19.9 percent stake in the money-losing venture and is out to block a deal that could beef up the failing company.

But the deal involves converting an $18 million loan Drexler made to MusclePharm into equity -- something that will squeeze existing shareholders and enrich Drexler, the hedge fund claims in court papers.

MusclePharm is punching back, claiming that White Winston’s lawsuit is what is hurting shareholders, according to a bulky 209-page opposition motion filed last week.

“[Enright’s] latest scheme, it appears, amounts to an attempt, based on false allegations fabricated out of whole cloth, to hold defendants ransom until they pay him to go away,” MusclePharm said in its complaint.

The two sides will have a chance to duke it out in a hearing on Friday.

To be sure, MusclePharm’s troubles have been around longer than White Winston.

The California company has not produced anything but annual losses since its inception in 2006 — and revenue is down 25 percent over the past three years.

Drexler took control of MusclePharm in 2015 as the company’s finances were weakened by pricey endorsement deals with athletic powerhouses such as Woods, Kaepernick and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“In the beginning that approach worked out well, but eventually they had to start paying for those endorsements and the size of the company didn’t match up,” Drexler explained in an interview with Inc. Magazine last year.

The deals were gradually nixed — often involving costly litigation — and Drexler focused on growing sales.

The executive also lent MusclePharm $18 million in three installments over the last three years when the company “had no chance of obtaining such financing,” MusclePharm noted in its motion last week.

Meanwhile MusclePharm has been ironing out a deal with a strategic partner that would both offer a new distribution channel for its $44.99, 4-pound container of protein powder, and other products — plus convert Drexler’s loans.

With the deal close, Drexler was seeing “a light at the end of a tunnel,” a source familiar with the situation told The Post.

But White Winston claims Drex- ler has already “unjustly enriched” himself at the expense of shareholders, and this plan will further their pain.

MusclePharm, with a market cap of $17 million, saw its shares close Friday at $1.15.

In 2014, the shares traded at $14 but, weighed down by nearly $65 million in losses since then — on $400 million in sales — haven’t surpassed $4 in three years.

Lawyers for White Winston declined to comment, citing pending litigation.