BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Dec. 25 (UPI) -- With scandals no longer dogging it, HealthSouth Corp., based in Birmingham, Ala., is preparing to hold its first shareholder meeting in three years.
The meeting set for next Thursday comes after the health-care provider, hit in the past by accounting fraud charges, filed its overdue annual report for 2004.
The filing keeps HealthSouth on track to resume filing regular quarterly reports early next year, the Wall Street Journal reports.
After the last shareholder meeting in May 2002, the company's profit shortfall expanded into an insider-trading probe and charges that several of its executives were cooking the books, the report said.
One of the times on the agenda next week is a shareholder proposal that HealthSouth amend its bylaws to require that the board chairman be an independent director. Jon F. Hanson, HealthSouth's current chairman, already meets that definition.
HealthSouth founder Richard M. Scrushy, acquitted in June of masterminding the fraud, is not planning to attend the meeting, even though he remains the second biggest shareholder, the report said.
