An internal document drafted in advance of UnitedHealth Group’s shareholder meeting this week reveals how the company’s leadership — facing an extraordinary series of financial and legal challenges — sought to downplay complaints about its business practices and assure jittery investors that it will soon return to maximum profitability.

The 18-page document, marked in red “privileged and confidential,’’ offers a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the nation’s most powerful health care conglomerate as it endures arguably the most difficult stretch in its nearly 50-year history. The last six months have been punctuated by government investigations, a tanking stock price, and the brazen killing of a top executive on a Manhattan street before the annual investor conference last December.

United

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