New York (AFP) - A masked gunman shot dead a top US health insurance executive outside a New York hotel Wednesday in an apparently targeted hit, before fleeing on a bicycle and triggering a citywide manhunt.

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down as he prepared to address investors with the gunman firing several times before using a rented bike to flee in the direction of Central Park, police said.

Police released security camera images showing the killer brandishing a handgun and wearing a hooded top. Detectives offered a $10,000 reward for the man’s capture.

Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said the shooter arrived on foot about five minutes before Thompson as pedestrians streamed past an access door to the Hilton.

Kenny said he approached Thompson from behind and opened fire, cleared a jam in the firearm, and fired again.

“The motive for this murder currently is unknown, but based on the evidence we have so far, it does appear that the victim was specifically targeted. But at this point, we do not know why,” Kenny told a press conference.

UnitedHealthcare is a major player in the multi-trillion-dollar US health care market, providing workplace insurance, as well as administering huge health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid for older and low-income people funded by state budgets.

Thompson, 50, was shot just before 7:00 am at the hotel in the Midtown district of Manhattan, with the CNBC broadcaster suggesting a silencer had been used.

Kenny would not confirm the report of a silencer being used, saying that the question would be part of the investigation but did confirm that a cell phone had been recovered from the scene.

He said that Thompson apparently had no security detail.

Video footage showed officers performing CPR on Thompson before he was taken to a nearby hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

The detective had no comment when asked at the press conference whether the killing could have been carried out by someone who had been denied insurance coverage for a medical condition – a common problem in the United States.

Minnesota-based Thompson’s wife Paulette Thompson told the NBC News outlet that he had received unspecified threats.

“There had been some threats basically I don’t know – (over) a lack of coverage? I don’t know details,” said Paulette Thompson who had two children with her late husband.

In a statement, UnitedHealth Group – the parent company of UHC – said it was “deeply saddened and shocked.”

Officers said the lighting of the Christmas tree at the nearby Rockefeller Center, a major annual event that draws vast crowds of tourists and locals, would proceed normally amid tightened security.

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UnitedHealth Group had revenues of $100.8 billion in the third quarter of the year.

UnitedHealthcare’s Employer and Individual products are used by almost 30 million people in the United States according to an investor presentation.

Thompson’s own compensation package in 2023 was $10.2 million according to a regulatory filing.

He had been chief executive of UnitedHealthcare since April 2021, according to a separate Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Before that, he oversaw UnitedHealthcare’s government programs including Medicare from July 2019 to April 2021.

The company was due to hold an investor day in New York on Wednesday at which Thompson was scheduled to deliver a keynote speech.

The event was canceled, CNBC reported, and the company did not respond to an AFP request for comment.

The New York Hilton Midtown is one of the city’s biggest hotels, popular with tourists and business travelers, and describes itself as Manhattan’s largest self-contained function space.

It was not answering calls in the wake of the incident.

Outside the hotel, senior police commanders briefed officers, as plainclothes detectives passed by upturned paper cups placed on the ground to mark evidence.

The suspect was described as a white man wearing a hooded jacket, black face mask, black and white sneakers, and carrying a grey backpack.