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Policy holders have complained of unfair and unreasonable actions by Penn Treaty American - that was about Long Term Health Care Runaround, and now here comes WellCare.
Shares of WellCare have been halted on the NYSE, and the WellCare stock fell 5.5 percent to $115.50. - why?
1) WellCare Health Plans Inc. confirmed that federal and state officials executed a search warrant at WellCare's Tampa, Fla., headquarters.
2) Shares of the Medicaid and Medicare health plan manager were halted earlier in the day after falling 6.8% to $115.50.
3) WellCare says it is cooperating with the authorities and that essential services are operational and will remain uninterrupted - OH YEAH?!
4) The U.S. Attorney's office in Tampa confirmed a raid at WellCare's offices by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents.
5) WellCare did not say what documents or materials were the subject of the search.
6) Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. downgrades WellCare Health Plans (NYSE: WCG) from Hold to Sell.
7) Shares of WellCare have been halted on the NYSE since Wednesday, 11 A.M.
8) as of September 2006, WellCare dominated the Northeast Florida Medicaid market with nearly 8,000 recipients having joined the state's pilot program in Duval County. That was four times the members that Shands Jacksonville's newly launched Medicaid product had attracted.
9) The nature of the investigation is unknown at this time. A release from the U.S. Department of Justice was generally vague. It said the ongoing investigation does not directly concern, nor should it have an impact on, the delivery of any health care service to any person.
10) Law enforcement personnel with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Heath and Human Services/Office of Inspector General, and the Florida Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit participated in the search, according to the release. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office assisted, according to a spokeswoman for the office.
I can say that agents had taken control of the entry point to the business and were photographing IDs. A federal agent was seen leaving the building with what appeared to be files.
11) Earlier Wednesday, the stock fell 5.5 percent to $115.50.
And here is a fact published a week ago:
WellCare Director Sells Stock
A director of WellCare Health Plans Inc., which provides services for government-sponsored healthcare programs, sold 10,000 shares of stock, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Thursday.
In a Form 4 filed with the SEC, Neal Moszkowski reported he sold the shares for $112.44 apiece to $113.27 apiece on Tuesday.
The stock sale was conducted under a prearranged 10b5-1 trading plan which allows a company insider to set up a program in advance for such transactions and proceed with them even if he or she comes into possession of material nonpublic information.
Insiders file Form 4s with the SEC to report transactions in their companies' shares. Open market purchases and sales must be reported within two business days of the transaction. Sphere: Related Content
5 comments:
First of all, your "confirmed facts" post is crap and to me, being in business investigations in the past, seems as if you are trying to manipulate the facts and details known at this time as if to sway some opinion.
There may be several reasons this happened, especially since this was a major medicaid/medicare provider that operates under stringent report & filings to the federal government. But if you think one minute, Had there been anything of imminent proportion to affect the medical industry's integrity, federal government plans, or the stock and the stock market itself, the federal agents would have removed everyone and locked the place down pronto! This DID NOT happen.
Your "suspicious" statements about "insiders" selling stock is also crap! You use the word improperly. Any Board of Director member who has controlling shares of that company's stock of any US registered corporation is always known as an "insider" as you are privvy to the day to day business dealings of the firm and personally involved in running its operations. This is why, as you so eloquently state, when ANY Board of Director of a US corp decides to sell any shares of said company stock, a proper SEC filing must be done (which was done) to notify SEC of the Director's intentions to part with an amount of stock, so it is fair, honestly done, and not deemed "suspicious" and to keep integrity in the company. This is nothing new and done all the time and is what is required of the SEC for any major stockowner of any firm. Besides, the 10,000 shares you state is not a large amount of stock for this compnay. Investment firms and hedge funds and other institutionals buy/sell more shares than that of this and thousands of other companies all the time!
I as a shareholder was very concerned when this happened. However I have seen this occur before, and even in Florida by Feds to other businesses for various reasons; not always criminal in any manner either.
We do not know what file(s) or to what nature were removed or what purpose. It could be many things.
It could also perhaps be a reverse action event whereas a known bad medical doctor group was being watchhed for some time and filed false claims traced back to WellCare unbeknownst to them, and the Feds need those files to compare with the medical doctors' practices to catch them in the red with the facts and arrest those culprits? It is known to many in the medical industry, there exists overbilling to medical insurance compnaies by many medical practices, and it may be a case like this too which the WellCare files are needed to corner a bad medical practice soemwhere else? We do not know. This "raid" could mean many things.
It may also simply be a spot surprise visit in light of today's much publicized corporate fraud that has occured in major insurance firms to major industry corporations and elsewhere, as a surprise act to ensure the integrity of WellCare and its operations under very strict federal guidelines, and this be nothing more in the end than just that.
Right now there is no reason to speculate from anyone who has no damn idea what the root reasons are for this. They can be many and complex and simple just the same. Also it is sickening how the media plays on words and events to sell newspapers, without having any substance to the root reasons of the situation yesterday. The media over-senationalizes facts and scenarios to scare the public.
What I do know, working with fraud events in the past, is whatever this is about will come out soon in the press when the regulators deem it fit; and that this company is still in full swing, full operation, with no affect or troubles to its products, coverage or purposes to millions of people. This says a lot!!!! Had there been anything devastating to the contrary, do you think the FBI would have left this company operating as any other normal business day?? NO! They would have taken people into custody and chain locked the place down and wrapped bright yellow tape around the whole building...
When I do a Google search for "Wellcare FBI" I find almost NO hits for articles in newspapers. Do we know who initally funded Wellcare? Answer: George Soros If you go to Yahoo finance ticker WCG look at insider trading in the last 2 years. Whis is it that I do a search in my local newpapers for Wellcare and find.....nada? Very Revealing
I agree whole heartedly with "Anonymous" below me. The media plays these things up and focuses on one word and tries to create things that are not there. I must say I am happy I sold my shares when the stock hit $122. Dumb luck is all I can call it. Here is one way to look at this situation; HOLD now then BUY, BUY, BUY. Again, like "Anonymous" below said, the FBI would have shut down the whole building had there been anything that seriously criminal going on and people who trade stocks know that "Insiders" sell stock all the time and it means absolutely nothing! This is just a case of the media trying to make something out of nothing-as usual. Anyone smart will watch and wait for a formal Press Release and QUIT SPECULATING AND TRYING TO STIR UP CRAP! I'm going to look at this as a huge BUY opportunity when the stock rebounds. And I bet it will. Good luck to "Anonymous" below me. I hope you can afford to HOLD or even buy more if you can!
Ooops, I was referring to "Anonymous" ABOVE me-who posted on 10/25/07 at 6:59PM. Good luck and HOLD on!
Uhhhhhhh.... whomever wrote the comment pasted below I have a suggestion. When you google "Wellcare FBI" of course you don't get much in results, you limited the search to the exact phrase. Yyou have to separate the words example "wellcare" "fbi" to get the results you were looking for. Hope this helps you in the future ;)
Anonymous said...
When I do a Google search for "Wellcare FBI" I find almost NO hits for articles in newspapers. Do we know who initally funded Wellcare? Answer: George Soros If you go to Yahoo finance ticker WCG look at insider trading in the last 2 years. Whis is it that I do a search in my local newpapers for Wellcare and find.....nada? Very Revealing
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