Frist Sold Stock Before Price Drop

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, sold all his stock in his family’s hospital company about two weeks before it issued a disappointing earnings report and the price fell 9%.

Frist held an undisclosed amount of stock in HCA Inc., the nation’s largest for-profit hospital chain. On June 13, he instructed the trustee managing the assets to sell his HCA shares and those of his wife and children, said Amy Call, a spokeswoman for Frist.

Frist’s shares in the Nashville company were sold by July 1 and those of his wife and children by July 8, Call said. The trustee decided when to sell the shares, and the Tennessee Republican had no control over the exact time they were sold, she said.

HCA shares peaked at $58.40 a share June 22. After slipping for two weeks, the price fell $4.86 to $50.05 on July 13 after the firm announced that quarterly earnings would not meet analysts’ expectations.

The value of Frist’s stock at the time of the sale was not disclosed. Earlier this year, he reported holding blind trusts valued at $7 million to $35 million.

Blind trusts are used to avoid conflicts of interest. Assets are turned over to a trustee who reports to the owner only the total value and income earned.

The sale of the shares was first reported by Congressional Quarterly.