Mr. Barasch: Universal American is an insurance and administrative services company that specializes in offering products to the senior market. My group took control of the company in 1988 when it had about 2 million of capital and 2 million of revenue, and over the next 13 years, through a combination of acquisitions and internal growth, we've built to the point where we now have over 500 million of premium revenues, 1.2 billion of assets, 210 million of shareholders equity and have nine insurance companies and three administrative services companies.
TWST: Could you explain the specific things the company did to achieve
its growth?
Mr. Barasch: Five or six years ago we targeted the senior market because
it's the fastest growing demographic segment in the country. The
percentage of the population of seniors is going to grow from about
12.5% of the population to 20% of the population over the next number of
years. There's an increasing need for both products and services from
this marketplace, so a large part of our internal growth has been the
fact that we were prepared and able to capitalize on the demand from the
senior market. We've experienced very significant internal growth
through our sales of medicare supplement, long-term care, and senior
life products. In addition, we've been able to always boost our internal
growth with a very disciplined, but very successful acquisition
strategy. We've bought 12 companies over the last 10 years. Our largest
deal was in 1999 when we bought the Career Sales Division from PennCorp
Financial for 130.5 million.
Tickers included in this excerpt: UHCO
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