Earnings : Far West Financial Reports 1984 Profit Increased 125%

Far West Financial Corp. of Newport Beach has reported 1984 earnings of $12.7 million, more than double those of 1983, despite virtually flat profits in the final quarter of the year.

For the fourth calendar quarter, net earnings for the holding company, parent of Far West Savings and Loan Assn., were $1.69 million, up only slightly from the $1.68 million reported a year earlier. Revenues for the 1984 quarter were $65.5 million, a 52% jump from the $43.1 reported in the comparable year-earlier period.

Far West’s annual earnings were 125% higher than the $5.6 million recorded in 1983. For the year, it recorded revenues of $238.8 million, a 60% increase from the $149.4 million posted the year before.

Most of the company’s 1984 earnings came from the $8.5 million profit the company realized during the second quarter when it sold a block of Gulf Oil stock. Far West’s majority owners are the Belzberg brothers of Canada, who had teamed up in 1983 with T. Boone Pickens, chairman of Mesa Petroleum Corp., in an effort to gain control of Gulf.

When the Pickens group failed to win a proxy battle with Gulf’s management, the price of the company’s stock soared and Far West quickly sold the stock it had acquired at the Belzbergs’ urging.