Turnaround Specialist Named CEO of Apria

Apria Healthcare Group Inc. on Tuesday named turnaround specialist Philip L. Carter as chief executive of the wayward Costa Mesa home health-care giant.

Carter, a 49-year-old Australian, engineered a turnaround at Dominguez-based Mac Frugal’s Bargains-Closeouts Inc., a 330-store close-out chain. The company was sold this year to Wilmington, Del.-based Consolidated Stores Corp.

Carter was recruited to Apria by recently appointed Chairman Ralph V. Whitworth, a shareholder activist who represents Apria’s largest stockholder, Relational Investors of La Jolla.

Whitworth and Carter declined to be interviewed Tuesday. Carter, through a spokeswoman, said: “I plan to spend the next 90 days becoming fully immersed in the business in order to gain a thorough understanding of its operations and current initiatives.”

Analysts credit Carter--Mac Frugal’s chief executive from March 1993 until January of this year--with engineering a restructuring that caused the company’s stock to rise about 250%.

Phil “leads by example. He works as hard or harder than he expects his people to and he learns every element of the business from the ground up,” said David Batchelder, Whitworth’s partner in Relational Investors, which holds a 9.9% stake in Apria.

Batchelder, who served as Mac Frugal’s chairman during Carter’s tenure, said Relational Investors is taking a similar activist role at Apria. Batchelder and Whitworth have known each other since both worked for T. Boone Pickens, the oil-industry takeover artist of the 1980s.

Also on Tuesday, Apria’s board--at Whitworth’s urging--named Richard H. Koppes, 51, an attorney with the firm of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, as a director.

In a statement, Whitworth said the appointments of Carter and Koppes “represent decisive steps in our continuing effort to restore Apria to operational health and realize its value for shareholders.”

The company’s stock has fallen 51% the last 12 months. Apria shares advanced 6 cents Tuesday, to $9, on the NYSE.

Carter’s appointment ends the board’s search for a permanent CEO after the resignation of Jeremy M. Jones in January. Since then, Apria’s president and chief operating officer, Lawrence M. Higby, had assumed CEO duties.