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UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was one of several senior executives at the company under investigation by the Department of Justice when he was gunned down outside a Manhattan hotel on Wednesday.
Thompson — who was killed in what police called a targeted shooting outside the Hilton hotel in Midtown — exercised stock options and sold shares worth $15.1 million on Feb. 16, less than two weeks before news of the federal antitrust probe went public, according to a Crain’s New York Business report from April.
The stock price dropped sharply after the revelation that the DOJ was investigating whether the company had made acquisitions that consolidated its market position in violation of antitrust laws, a source familiar with the probe told the outlet.
Thompson’s stock options reportedly had several years until expiration, and the sale of shares was his first since assuming the helm of parent company UnitedHealth’s insurance division in 2021.
Thompson, 50, along with UnitedHealth Group chairman Stephen Helmsley, Chief People Officer Erin McSweeney and Chief Accounting Officer Tom Roos, sold a combined $101.5 million in shares, with Helmsley personally netting just shy of $85 million, according to the report.
Charles Elson, founding director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, told Crain’s that share sales by firm principals are typically scrutinized by a company’s general counsel, who can determine whether any additional disclosures to the market may be required before the trades are executed.
Earlier this year, UnitedHealth was hit by one of the largest healthcare data breaches in US history, the company estimating as many as one-third of Americans’ private data — potentially including Social Security numbers — were compromised in the ransomware attack.
The company wound up paying the hackers a $22 million ransom, CEO Andrew Witty told a Congressional panel in May.
The massive firm — with annual revenue of around $372 billion — later said it estimated its financial cost as a result of the hack to be around $705 million, Reuters reported.
