WellCare says SEC joins probe

By Paritosh Bansal and Lewis Krauskopf

NEW YORK (Reuters) - WellCare Health Plans Inc (WCG.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), which manages health care for more than a million poor Americans, said on Friday that securities regulators had asked for information after the FBI raided the company's Florida headquarters.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission request was made public after the Connecticut attorney general said on the same day that he had been investigating WellCare's affiliate.

The SEC requested unspecified information on Thursday, a day after more than 200 federal and state agents raided WellCare's Tampa, Florida headquarters, the company said.

Shares in WellCare, which provides managed care services for government-sponsored healthcare programs, focusing on Medicaid and Medicare, are down 73 percent since the raid.

Also on Friday, a shareholder sued the company and two top executives, alleging they disseminated materially false and misleading statements and concealed adverse facts, according to the complaint.

The shareholder, Eastwood Enterprises LLC, is seeking class action status, covering buyers of WellCare stock between May 8, 2006 and October 24, 2007, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, names Chief Executive Todd Farha and Chief Financial Officer Paul Behrens besides WellCare.

WellCare spokeswoman Amy Knapp said the company had not yet received the suit, but based on what it had seen, believed the suit lacks merit.