Investors Turning Up Heat on Beckman : Acquisitions: Group headed by takeover specialist Lee Bass proposes more independent board of directors in SEC filing. It will press demands on lab instruments maker in meeting Jan. 27.

An investor group that may have its sights on eventual control of Beckman Instruments Inc. is proposing a more independent board of directors for the manufacturer of medical laboratory instruments, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The group led by Texas investor Lee Bass, whose family is renowned for taking over companies, will suggest at a meeting scheduled for Jan. 27 with Beckman officials that a majority of independent directors be elected to the board. An independent director is a board member who is not also an employee of the company.

The group, which now holds a 5.3% stake in Beckman, also wants the company’s committee that nominates future board members to be made up only of independent directors, according to Thursday’s filing. And it wants shareholders to have a larger say than they do now in choosing new directors.

The investor group in late December requested the meeting to make changes in the company’s corporate structure. It wrote in an SEC filing at the time that it had “a number of ideas about how financial and operating performance could be improved.”

In its latest filing, the Bass group suggested that a review committee be established to recommend corporate changes at Beckman Instruments and improve profits.

Beckman, based in Fullerton, was spun off from SmithKline Beckman Corp. in 1989. It had 1991 profit of $38.1 million on revenue of $857 million.