Berkshire-Invested Verisk Promotes Hays to Run Health Unit After Sales Slump
November 21, 2013 Leave a comment
Verisk Promotes Hays to Run Health Unit After Sales Slump
Verisk Analytics Inc. (VRSK), the supplier of actuarial and risk data to banks and insurers, promoted Nadine Hays to lead the health unit after a slump in sales. Hays was named president of the business, which has 1,850 employees and focuses on clinical risk-assessment technologies and data, the Jersey City, New Jersey-based company said today in a statement. She replaces Joel Portice, who is leaving to “pursue other interests” and will report to Verisk Chief Executive Officer Scott Stephenson, according to the statement.Verisk plunged 8.6 percent to $62 on Nov. 6, its biggest drop since 2009, after revenue missed analysts’ estimates as growth slowed in the health segment. Third-quarter health-care sales climbed 6.2 percent to $73.6 million from a year earlier. That compares with a 21 percent increase in the second quarter.
Hays plans to “help our customers navigate the unprecedented challenges that the health-care market is facing,” she said in the statement.
She was previously executive vice president and head of sales, marketing and strategic partnerships at the health unit. Hays joined through the company’s 2009 acquisition of D2Hawkeye, a health-care data company where she served as chief marketing officer. She graduated from University of California, Santa Barbara, and holds a law degree from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
‘Mutually Agreeable’
Portice’s departure results from a “mutually agreeable decision,” Verisk said in an e-mailed statement today. He “played an important role in bringing together the company’s health-care strategy and acquisitions under a unified brand and single management team. Verisk thanks Joel for his contribution and wishes him well in his future endeavors.”
Verisk slipped 0.2 percent to $63.19 at 4:30 p.m. in New York. The company has advanced 24 percent this year, trailing the 25 percent gain in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
Growth at the health unit was “below our plan,” Stephenson said Nov. 5 when it announced third-quarter results. “But we remain enthusiastic about our longer-term outlook.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Marci Jacobs in New York at mjacobs63@bloomberg.net
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