CFO booted out at WellPoint

WellPoint's finance chief has been pushed out of the company, accused of unspecified financial improprieties. Effective immediately, WellPoint senior vice president and chief accounting officer Wayne DeVeydt will take over as executive vice president and CFO. The company demanded that CFO David Colby resign after it concluded that Colby had violated the company's code of conduct. This came despite Colby's having been promoted only two months ago to vice chairman.

The company insists that Colby's unnamed misdeeds weren't illegal and weren't related to WellPoint's business, so it won't be saying what he did to bring down the board's ire. Nonetheless, there's little doubt that these accusations will make investors in the publicly-traded company a bit nervous for a while. The announcement pushed down the company's stock 3.5 percent in the wake of the scandal. WellPoint, which ranked 38th among the Fortune 500 last year, runs a very large network of Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, including Blue Cross of California and BCBS of Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Nevada and New Hampshire.

To find out more about the issue:
- read this WellPoint press release (.pdf)
- read this Los Angeles Times piece

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