Committee Created to Assess Apria Healthcare’s ‘Future Course’

COSTA MESA —  Apria Healthcare Group Inc. said Wednesday that directors have formed a three-member committee to assess the company’s “future course,” following the collapse of its deal with a private investment group.

The committee is to report back to the board at its next scheduled meeting April 28.

The beleaguered Costa Mesa home health-care firm appeared to secure its future with a deal in February to obtain $172 million from Joseph Littlejohn & Levy and its partner, an affiliate of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

But last week, Apria sued JLL and its partner, alleging they were refusing to go through with the transaction unless significant revisions were made.

In filing the suit, Apria said it intended to move quickly on alternatives. Chairman George L. Argyros said in prepared remarks Wednesday that the JLL developments “obviously require board action on a number of important matters.”

The company said it would have no further comment until after its next board meeting.

The committee includes Argyros, the company’s largest individual shareholder with 5.4%, and director Ralph V. Whitworth, whose Relational Investors LLC is the biggest institutional shareholder with 9.9%. The third member is Director Leonard Green.

Apria’s statement raised more questions than it answered, said analyst Charles A. Boorady at Prudential Securities in New York. “We definitely could use more information,” he said.

The company said it intends by mid-April to renegotiate the $338 million owed to a syndicate of banks led by Bank of America and NationsBank.