Laidlaw Hopes to Sell Health Unit by August

Laidlaw Inc. said it will try to sell its beleaguered U.S. health-care operations by the end of August to help pay down its $3-billion debt. John Grainger, Laidlaw’s new chief executive, said that if the health assets were not sold by then, the Canadian company would set a new deadline or change course. It expects to receive about $1.6 billion from the sale. “We have had some hard offers,” Grainger told the company’s annual shareholder meeting. He reiterated an earlier plan to focus North America’s largest school bus company on what it does best, following its disastrous move into the health-care business. Laidlaw refused to set a deadline on the sale of its 44% stake in waste management company Safety-Kleen Corp. Grainger said analysts’ earnings projection of 62 cents a share for the year will be “at the high end of the range.”