What's Going On With UnitedHealth Stock Friday?

Health insurance and services company UnitedHealth Group UNH said on Wednesday that the company identified a suspected nation-state-associated cyber security threat actor that had gained access to some of the Change Healthcare information technology systems. 

UnitedHealth Group has owned Change since it merged with healthcare services company Optum in 2022. 

“At this time, we believe the issue is specific to Change Healthcare, and all other systems across UnitedHealth Group are operational,” read a system update notice Thursday morning on Optum’s site.

Immediately upon detection of this outside threat, the company isolated the impacted systems from other connecting systems.

In an SEC filing, UnitedHealth said it is working to restore those systems and resume normal operations as soon as possible but cannot estimate the duration or extent of the disruption. 

Currently, the company believes the network interruption is specific to Change Healthcare systems, and all other systems across the company are operational.

During the disruption, certain networks and transactional services may not be accessible. 

As of the date of this report, UnitedHealth has not determined that the incident is reasonably likely to materially impact the company’s financial condition or results of operations.

Earlier this month, UnitedHealth’s president and chief operating officer, Dirk McMahon, announced to retire, effective April 1, 2024, after serving over 20 years in the company. A replacement for McMahon has yet to be named.

During CNBC’s ‘Halftime Report,’ Karen Firestone, Aureus Asset Management chairman and CEO, said, “This is a great company that has a lot of momentum…We think it still has big cash flow, it is a dividend payer, it’s a leader in its field, and we think it will continue to show better numbers than the Street as now we are thinking about.”

Price Action: UNH shares are down 0.47% at $524.01 premarket on the last check Friday.