Amedisys Shares Plunge After 2 Executives Leave

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Amedisys Inc. said two top executives are leaving the company Thursday, and the home health and hospice provider's shares plunged.

The company said President and Chief Operating Officer Larry Graham and Chief Information Officer Alice Schwartz resigned effective immediately. Both are leaving to pursue other interests, Amedisys said. CEO William Borne will temporarily take over for Graham.

Graham, 43, joined the company in 1996. He was named COO in January 1996 and became president in 2004. Schwartz, 42, had worked for Amedisys in 1998 and became chief information officer in September 2004.

The stock dropped $10.29, or 24 percent, to $33.17. About 11 million shares changed hands by 11 a.m. EDT, compared with an average full-day volume of around 592,000 shares.

Raymond James analyst John Ransom said Amedisys is losing its COO at a "critical juncture" because home health care companies are facing sharp cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates. He thinks Graham and Schwartz left because of disagreements about who would succeed company founder Borne, 51, and not because of any problems with Amedisys' business.

Ransom downgraded the stock to "Market Perform" from "Outperform," and removed his price target of $47 per share. He said Amedisys shares were vulnerable because of their recent gains. The stock had climbed 36 percent over the past two months, but gave much of that back in morning trading.