PSA Expects to Report Loss for 1st Quarter

PSA Inc., the parent corporation of Pacific Southwest Airlines, expects to report a net loss for the first quarter ending March 31 that will be “substantially larger” than the $448,000 net loss recorded during the same quarter of 1985, according to a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.

A company spokesman on Wednesday declined to elaborate on how large the quarterly loss probably will be.

However, PSA’s loss is expected to be “in the ballpark” with what analysts have been anticipating, according to David Sylvester, a San Francisco-based airline industry analyst with Montgomery Securities, who suggested that most airlines will be reporting soft first-quarter results.

Bad weather in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest disrupted scheduled airline service and adversely affected revenues, according to the SEC filing. The airline also has been absorbing costs generated by last year’s airline expansion to seven airports and “the cost of additional employees hired to meet those expansion needs.”

PSA Inc. also anticipates a pretax loss of more than $6 million that is linked to foreign currency transactions. The loss was driven by the dollar’s recent strong performance compared to the value of the Japanese yen.

In the Wednesday SEC filing, PSA Inc. announced that it will offer 2 million shares of common stock in a public offering by E.F. Hutton & Co. and $75 million in senior notes that will be due in 1996.

Proceeds will be used to redeem convertible subordinated debentures and cumulative convertible preferred stock and to retire $23.1 million in outstanding airline subsidiary debt. The proceeds will also be used by PSA to purchase additional oil and gas properties and for general corporate purposes.