Bloomberg News reports that CEO William McGuire and other officers and directors of UnitedHealth Group Inc. have been sued by shareholders for allegedly backdating stock-option grants.
The suit was filed last week, one day after the nation's second-largest health insurer said it had been subpoenaed by the U.S. attorney in New York and the IRS over its stock-option grants.
Bloomberg reports: “Executives including McGuire and Chief Operating Officer Stephen Hemsley were issued options that were backdated to days when the company's shares were unusually low to increase the recipients' profits once the options were exercised, the suit claims.
‘William W. McGuire would have us believe he is the luckiest man in America,’ the 35-page complaint says. ‘McGuire and/or Hemsley somehow managed to receive stock option grants on the single lowest trading day of the year four years in a row.’
Incidentally, the suit was filed last Thursday. This is a big Minnesota story, since UnitedHealth is based here. But the Star Tribune published the Bloomberg story – not its own story – in Saturday's paper on page D3. That’s the fourth section of the paper, on the 2nd last page of the section.
Posted by schwitz at May 21, 2006 05:45 PM | TrackBack