Majority Stockholder Lowering Stake in PacifiCare to Under 50%

The majority shareholder of PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. said Wednesday that it plans to sell about 5% of its shares in the health maintenance organization.

The decision by UniHealth America, an HMO based in Burbank, to lower its stake in PacifiCare below 50% is an accounting strategy.

“There’s going to be consolidation in the industry over the next three years,” PacifiCare Chief Executive Alan Hoops said Wednesday. “We want to be in the position to participate in that as optimally as we can.”

If PacifiCare, based in Cypress, has no majority shareholder, it will be able to acquire smaller businesses with better tax and accounting advantages, Hoops said.

UniHealth America, which now owns 6.4 million shares of PacifiCare’s stock, recently announced that it is merging with Blue Shield of California to form a $5-billion managed care enterprise. That news raised concerns among health-care analysts about how the merger would affect PacifiCare, which is UniHealth’s largest subsidiary. Analysts questioned how a parent and subsidiary would compete with each other in a shrinking managed care market.

Hoops said that UniHealth’s decision to sell some PacifiCare stock is not related to the UniHealth-Blue Shield merger.

In Wednesday’s trading on the NASDAQ market, PacifiCare closed at $37.50 a share, up 37.5 cents.