The “break ’em down to build ’em up” activist investing style of Ralph Whitworth, a former chairman and director of Lake Forest-based Apria Healthcare Group Inc., got some ink in Forbes recently.
Whitworth, who joined Apria’s board in 1998 and stepped down in 2005, caught the magazine’s eye after he got a seat on Sprint Nextel Corp.’s board.
Whitworth and his San Diego-based Relational Investors LLC no longer are significant shareholders in Apria, according to a spokeswoman.
Now 52, Whitworth has made his name as an activist shareholder by buying large blocks of a company’s stock and then using his clout.
During Whitworth’s time at Apria, he was praised for reforming the company’s board, including bringing on directors in his own image.
“I asked five directors in one day to resign,” Whitworth told Treasury & Risk, a trade publication, in 2005. “The culture of the board when I joined was a collegial, ‘good ole boys’ network. Today, the culture is what I would call constructive tension.”
The Treasury & Risk article mentioned Whitworth’s other acts during the time he was Apria’s chairman, including separating the offices of chief executive and chairman, putting financial experts on the board’s audit committee and implementing an evaluation system.
As for Whitworth’s latest directorship, Forbes looked at speculation on initiatives he planned to push for, including selling the network that supports Nextel users, selling Sprint’s long-distance unit and even selling its entire wireless business.
Forbes mentioned some of Whitworth’s other directorial actions, including using a seat on Mattel Corp.’s board to get the toy maker’s management to ditch a $3.5 billion educational video game business it had just purchased. Mattel’s stock rose after it cut its losses, according to Forbes.
“Whitworth also makes it clear which executives he thinks ought to go, and they sometimes do,” Forbes said.
He voiced doubt in Gary Forsee who stepped down as Sprint Nextel’s chief executive last October.
Forbes also mentioned that “besides bullying executives,” Whitworth is well-known as a car and music buff. The article mentions Whitworth paying Paul McCartney $1 million to play a private, 19-song concert for his wife’s birthday, as well as opening a muscle car museum in Winnemucca, Nev., his hometown.
Doctors Take Lead in Trade Group
Orange County doctors are well-represented in the California Association of Physician Groups, made up of some 150 medical groups around the state.
Jay Cohen, president and chairman of Irvine-based Monarch HealthCare, is serving as chair of the Los Angeles- and Sacramento-based association’s board for 2008. Keith Wilson, chief executive of Talbert Medical Group of Costa Mesa, was named chair-elect.
The association said its physician groups are responsible for providing healthcare services to some 15 million Californians.
Besides Cohen and Wilson, Diane Laird, chief executive of Greater Newport Physicians, a medical group affiliated with Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach, also is serving on the association’s board this year.
Molina: Medicaid in Ohio
Molina Healthcare Inc., a managed care company just across the county line in Long Beach, is waiting to step in to cover Medicaid patients in Ohio.
An article in Business First of Columbus indicated that Molina’s Ohio unit and CareSource, a unit of Dayton, Ohio-based nonprofit CareSource Management Group, were gearing up to cover some 39,000 central Ohioans after Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield told state officials that it would stop covering Medicaid recipients as of April 1.
Bits and Pieces:
Masimo Corp., an Irvine device maker, unrolled a measurement for testing oxygen-carrying hemoglobin on its Rainbow SET device last week during the World Congress of Anesthesiology in Cape Town, South Africa. Masimo said the noninvasive technique would make hemoglobin testing more convenient and broadly available to medical personnel in acute and outpatient settings Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian said it is now offering Leksell Gamma Knife Perfextion, a non-invasive radiosurgical device to treat brain disease Irvine-based PrimeGen Biotech said that its researchers successfully used purified protein and DNA in non-viral methods to reprogram adult human cells into stem cells. PrimeGen said that the technique could provide a springboard into treatments that would eliminate graft rejection and the risk of graft versus host disease in patients Patient Care Technology Systems, a Mission Viejo-based subsidiary of Consulier Engineering Inc., said Providence St. Vincent Medical Center of Portland, Ore., is using its Amelior tracking software in its radiology department.
