Will Help Irvine Thrift’s Suitor : Lincoln S&L;’s Chief Quits After 3 Months

William D. Hinz, who was hired three months ago to restructure Lincoln Savings & Loan as a more traditional savings institution, said Thursday that he has quit as chairman and chief executive in order to help an investor group negotiate the purchase of the Irvine-based S&L.;

Hinz said he and a group of two or three investors have begun evaluating Lincoln’s assets in an effort to come up with an offer to buy the institution from its parent, American Continental Corp. in Phoenix.

The group may take three months to put a value on Lincoln’s assets, mainly its direct investments in hotels and real estate across the country, Hinz said. Only then would a formal offer be made, he said, and negotiations would begin in earnest.

Hinz, 49, will be succeeded by Robin S. Symes, 35, the officer Hinz had replaced. With Hinz’s appointment Symes had been promoted to senior vice president of the holding company, a position he will keep.

With $5 billion in assets and $300 million in net worth, Lincoln is the 18th-largest S&L; in the state and the second-largest in Orange County.

Hinz’s resignation surprised some regulators, but a possible sale of Lincoln did not. At the time he was hired, American Continental executives hinted that the company might peddle the S&L.;

American Continental Chairman Charles H. Keating Jr. grew disenchanted with the industry as he engaged in long battles with regulators about the scope of the 1982 federal deregulation of financial services institutions.

Keating embraced deregulation and advocated the expanded and non-traditional investment powers--especially for direct investments in real estate properties and developments--that it gave to thrifts. His stance brought him and his institution into conflict with the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, which at the time was trying to curtail such investments through new regulations.

Not for Sale

A bank board spokesman said Thursday that the board recently completed what had been an unusually long, two-year examination of Lincoln. A company spokesman said the company is satisfied with the results, which will not be made public.

Keating has reportedly told other potential bidders for Lincoln that the S&L; was not for sale. An American Continental spokesman who did not want to be identified reiterated Thursday that Lincoln is not for sale, but he acknowledged that the Hinz group has been allowed to evaluate nearly all the S&L;’s assets--as well as some of the parent company’s assets--as part of the group’s “due diligence” procedures that precede an offer.

The Hinz group is the only one to start a due diligence examination, the spokesman said.

Hinz, a 25-year veteran of the S&L; industry and former executive vice president of Great American First Savings Bank in San Diego, said he had been working with an investors group that wanted to form a thrift before he joined Lincoln. He said he disclosed that fact to Keating before joining the firm and that the group continued its search for a thrift.

Although it is also looking at smaller thrifts in Colorado, Arizona and Washington, the group has focused its efforts on Lincoln.

“I went to Charley and asked him about it, and he said it was not for sale,” Hinz said. “I said we’d still like to look at it and make an offer. He told me he would sell it for the right price and that he’d consider our offer.”

But at that point, Hinz said, both men realized that Hinz had a conflict of interest. So on Feb. 25, he resigned from his posts at Lincoln. He became a consultant, though, to Keating and American Continental, as well as a consultant to the investor group.