OT: Health Care Costs ** Hidden Costs

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December 07, 2007

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/business/07options.html?th= & emc=th & pagewanted=\

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Former

Chief Will Forfeit $418 Million By ERIC

DASH<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/eric_dash/inde\

x.html?inline=nyt-per>

 

In one of the largest corporate pay give-backs ever, William W.

McGuire<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/william_w_m\

cguire/index.html?inline=nyt-per>,

the former chief executive of UnitedHealth

Group<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/united_health_group_\

inc/index.html>,

has agreed to forfeit at least $418 million to settle claims related to

back-dated stock options.

 

Butch added .. who is United Health Group?

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/united_health_group_inc/in\

dex.html

 

The payback is on top of roughly $198 million that Mr. McGuire, an

entrepreneur who built UnitedHealth, had previously agreed to return to his

former employer.

 

The total — $618 million — includes money that Mr. McGuire will return as

part of separate settlements reached yesterday with the Securities and

Exchange Commission and UnitedHealth shareholders. The forfeitures are the

first time regulators have successfully employed corporate governance rules

put in place after the collapse of Enron that force executives to disgorge

ill-gotten gains.

 

As part of the settlement with the S.E.C., Mr. McGuire will pay a $7 million

fine and will be barred from serving as a director of a public company for

10 years. He will, however, be allowed to keep stock options valued at more

than $800 million, including many that have been sharply criticized.

 

The developments are the most significant to date since federal regulators

started looking into the backdating of stock options. More than 120

companies have come under scrutiny for granting options to executives on

dates when the company's share price was low, a tactic that guaranteed the

maximum profit when the options were exercised.

 

The settlement comes a year after the furor over compensation forced Mr.

McGuire's resignation from UnitedHealth, the nation's largest health

insurer.

 

In a statement yesterday, Mr. McGuire said that he was pleased to put the

controversy behind him.

 

" The last 18 months have been an extraordinarily challenging period for my

family, and I am pleased to have reached a resolution, " he said.

 

UnitedHealth remains embroiled in the scandal over improperly granted

options. The S.E.C. said its inquiry at UnitedHealth is continuing. So far,

the company has restated its earnings by $1.5 billion and announced a $55

million settlement with the Internal Revenue

Service<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/i/inte\

rnal_revenue_service/index.html?inline=nyt-org>.

 

 

S.E.C. officials, as a matter of policy, declined to comment whether any

specific executives or directors were under scrutiny. In October 2006,

UnitedHealth's top lawyer, David J. Lubben, and a former director, William

G. Spears, abruptly resigned.

 

In August 2006, the company board appointed a special litigation committee

to review claims brought against the company related to improper backdating.

 

Yesterday, this committee concluded that all claims against current and

former officials should be dropped. The committee reached settlements with

Mr. Lubben, who will give back about $30 million and Mr. Spears, who agreed

to arbitration.

 

UnitedHealth has maintained its support of its current chief, Stephen

Hemsley, even though he voluntarily agreed to give back or reprice millions

of improperly dated options, at a cost of nearly $240 million.

 

Most companies implicated in backdating controversies so far are Silicon

Valley start-ups or firms with technology roots, where options with

favorable dates were considered a recruitment tool. UnitedHealth, which has

a market capitalization of $66 billion, is one of the few blue-chip

companies to face the issue, and its problems underscore how prevalent the

practice has been.

 

UnitedHealth has gone through operating strains since Mr. McGuire left, as

it tried to integrate several large acquisitions, including Oxford Health

Plans, and took on the largest number of enrollees in the new

Medicare<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthto\

pics/medicare/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>Part

D drug plan while cutting costs. Shareholder advocates cheered the

decision and the use of the S.E.C.'s willingness to claw back ill-gotten

stock sales and bonuses. " I think this is terrific, " said John A. Hill,

chairman of the trustees at Putnam Funds, the mutual fund giant.

 

" I think it sets the standard for similar events that may occur in the

future, " said Mr. Hill, who is a critic of what he regards as excessive

executive pay.

 

Chad Johnson, a partner at Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, a law firm

that represented six of the nine public pension funds that sued UnitedHealth

Group and 20 executives and directors, said: " This result significantly

raises the bar on corporate accountability. It sends a message to top-level

executives that you can't take money from the company and shareholders and

not expect to be held accountable by institutional investors. "

 

The roughly $900 million to be repaid by the executives is remarkable on

several counts. First, the figure exceeds the profits generated by the

executives as a result of the backdating schemes, Mr. Johnson said. In

addition, the recovery in the case is far greater than amounts received in

other settlements reached with companies in the recent past.

 

Individuals sued in cases related to the Enron failure, for example, paid

$13 million. And the backdating case involving Mercury

Interactive<http://www.nytimes.com/mem/MWredirect.html?MW=http://custom.marketwa\

tch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp & symb=MERQ>generated

$117 million in recoveries.

 

Shareholders sued UnitedHealth and the 20 executives and directors in the

spring of 2006, after the company's options granting practices were

questioned in an article in The Wall Street Journal. The lawyers for the

nine state pension funds conducted an investigation and later filed suit.

 

The shareholder action got a big lift in March 2007 when James M. Rosenbaum,

the federal judge overseeing the case in Minnesota, refused to grant the

defendants' motion to dismiss the case and allowed discovery to proceed.

That allowed lawyers for the pension funds to review internal documents.

 

Mr. Johnson said the special litigation committee formed by the UnitedHealth

directors was more aggressive than similar committees convened at other

troubled companies because it carefully weighed the input of investors.

 

Milt Freudenheim and Gretchen Morgenson contributed reporting.

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