Beckman Investors Want Stronger Voice : Management: Bass Group requests a meeting with company directors regarding methods of operation.

Fulfilling earlier promises, a group led by Texas investor Lee Bass said it will meet with officials of Beckman Instruments Inc. seeking a stronger voice in the way the international medical company is run.

The Bass Group, which owns a 5.3% stake in Beckman, has requested a Jan. 27 meeting with Beckman’s board of directors, according to a filing by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Bass group has “a number of ideas about how financial and operating performance could be improved,” according to its statement to the SEC.

Bass Group and Beckman officials were unavailable Thursday for comment on the filing.

The statement is almost identical to one made in February by the Bass Group, whose head is a member of the Bass family, known in investor circles as corporate raiders with a reputation for shaking up companies they target.

The group announced Feb. 5 that it was buying the stake in Beckman, saying that it “has, and expects to continue to have, discussions with management . . . concerning various ways of maximizing long-term shareholder value.”

It was not immediately known how many such meetings the group has had with the Fullerton-based manufacturer of automated systems for quality control and research laboratories.

In a Dec. 23 letter to Beckman officials, the group said it will discuss the company’s corporate structure, which it doesn’t consider to be in line with “financial markets in the 1990s.” Among other things, the group is critical of the lack of a nominating committee at Beckman to seek outside directors and a company policy that prevents individual shareholders from influencing corporate policy or the board’s composition.

“We believe that the company could benefit from reforms that would ultimately bring onto the board new, independent directors, chosen cooperatively and jointly by the stockholders and management,” the letter to Beckman said. A copy of that letter has been filed with the SEC.

It was not clear if the Bass Group’s ultimate strategy is to place one of its own members on Beckman’s board of directors.

Notwithstanding the Bass Group’s request for reforms, Beckman has risen above past lackluster showings and has performed well lately.

In October, the company reported that third-quarter profit totaled $11.4 million, up 10% from the previous third quarter. The company, which spun off from SmithKline Beckman Corp. in 1989, had 1991 profit of $38.1 million, up 5% from the previous year, on annual revenue of $857 million.

Since the Bass Group announced that it had purchased 1.5 million of Beckman’s 29.1 million outstanding shares, the stock has risen steadily from about $20 a share

Beckman stock closed at $32.75 a share Thursday, down 87.5 cents in New York Stock Exchange trading.