Unilab Chairman Buys $1.8 Million in Stock

The chairman of Unilab Corp. has bought $1.8 million worth of stock in the company, a Tarzana-based operator of medical labs.

Andrew H. Baker, who is also Unilab’s chief executive, purchased 342,000 shares March 11, for an average price of $5.26 a share, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. (On the NASDAQ market that day, Unilab closed at $6 a share.)

Baker’s stake represents less than 1% of Unilab’s total shares outstanding. He bought the stock from one of Unilab’s institutional stockholders, said Richard Michaelson, Unilab’s vice president of finance.

“It had been a long-term plan of his to own a significant stake in the company,” Michaelson said of Baker.

Unilab, with $214 million in sales last year, is planning to sell its non-California labs to Corning Inc. in exchange for, among other things, Corning assuming $70 million of Unilab’s $93 million of debt. Unilab operates labs in Tarzana, San Jose, Sacramento, Denver, Dallas and Phoenix.