The Hammond Co.

Despite a slight increase in revenue, The Hammond Co., a publicly owned mortgage banking and real estate services firm, posted a $49,000 loss for its third quarter, ended Dec. 31, compared to a $95,000 profit for the same period last year.

The third-quarter loss, said Thomas Hammond, president of the Newport Beach company, “is a tremendous improvement” from the $210,000 loss the company reported for the second quarter of fiscal 1985.

For the first nine months of its 1985 fiscal year, Hammond reported earnings of $63,000, but that was down 94.6% from a profit of $1.17 million for the initial nine months of the previous fiscal year.

Although third-quarter revenues of $2.2 million were up 2.3% from the $2.1 million reported a year earlier, Hammond’s nine-month revenues of $6.8 million were down 23% from the $8.8 million posted for the same period last year.

In a statement late last week, Thomas Hammond said that the third-quarter losses occurred because increasing competition and higher interest rates during the first half of the quarter lowered the company’s gross earnings on the loans it originated. He also said “occupancy expenses were high for (the company’s) current level of business” and gross earnings were cut by the costs of developing two new financial products Hammond expects to begin marketing later this year.

Hammond said that the drop in interest during the last half of the third quarter helped boost the company’s loan originations to $85.7 million for the period, up 128% from $37.7 million in loans originated during the third quarter of fiscal 1984.

Hammond’s revenues also increased during the quarter, he said, because the company sold $47 million worth of bonds in the builder bond program it originated last summer.

Hammond is one of only four publicly traded mortgage banking companies in the country.