UnitedHealth CEO was assassinated in Manhattan early Wednesday

• UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed in Manhattan on Wednesday morning.
• Thompson was He was shot by a masked gunman in town for an investor meeting.
• UNH shares rose nearly 3% after the opening bell, in what some say is solidarity with the company.

Brian Thompson, the CEO of the largest UnitedHealth Group (UNH) Bloomberg reports that police were shot outside a Hilton hotel in Manhattan early Wednesday morning. There are few details at this time, but Thompson, 50, was pronounced dead at a local hospital shortly after the shooting, New York police told Bloomberg.

UnitedHealth’s stock price fell more than $15 premarket as the news broke, but had already begun to rise before the opening bell. UNH shares then rose 2.8% after Wednesday’s open, with some on social media speculating that Wall Street was showing solidarity with the company.

As the largest member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and the largest health insurer in the U.S., news could determine the direction of the index in the middle of the week. But after the opening bell, the DJIA rose 0.6%.

Brian Thompson shoots

PIX11, a local New York station, was first to report that Thompson was shot in the chest around 6:46 a.m. local time as he stood outside the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan. Thompson was in town to host an investor day for the company.

The attack was likely targeted, sources told Bloomberg, because the gunman waited for Thompson when he arrived, shot him from about 20 feet away, and then fled the area on foot.

The Hilton hotel where Thompson stayed is in an affluent part of Manhattan where crime like this is quite unusual. Located on 54th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. According to the New York Post, the shooter was wearing a mask and fled eastbound on 6th Avenue.

Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare (Source: UnitedHealth Group)

Brian Thompson assumed the leadership role at UnitedHealthcare, UnitedHealth Group’s largest unit by revenue, in April 2021. Since then, UNH stock performance has outperformed the S&P 500, rising more than 111%. UnitedHealthcare reported $74.9 billion in revenue and 29.7 million domestic customers in its most recent quarter.

Thompson joined UnitedHealth Group in 2004 and held numerous leadership positions within the company before becoming CEO of the UnitedHealthcare unit.

(This story was corrected at 2:50 GMT on December 4 to say that Brian Thompson was the CEO of the UnitedHealthcare unit, the company’s largest segment, and not the CEO of UnitedHealth Group.)