Chase Plans to Sell Some Assets

Chase Manhattan Corp., among the big U.S. banking groups struggling to improve their balance sheets, plans this year to sell assets worth between $500 million and $600 million, President Thomas Labrecque said Tuesday.

Labrecque told securities analysts that the assets would include One New York Plaza, the property that houses Chase’s back-office operations in New York.

“We hope to actually receive the bids (for One New York Plaza) in mid-April,” he said. He did not give an estimate for the building’s price. Other assets on the block include the previously announced sales of a computer services company and a building in Paris.

Labrecque said he expected Chase’s first-quarter earnings to be “solid” but declined to make a specific estimate.

He forecast that Chase’s common equity-to-asset ratio would hit 3.5% by the end of the first quarter, up from 3.28% at the end of last year. Banking analysts say a 4% equity-to-asset ratio is healthy.

Discussing the bank’s plans, Labrecque said Chase had no intention to buy any regional banks. “At prices of 2 1/2 times book (the average price of regional banks), there are not many we can make,” he said.

He said he expected Chase’s securities trading operations, which lost an undisclosed sum last year, to break even in 1988.

He also said the bank’s credit quality was improving and that non-performing loans should fall below $400 million by the end of 1988. Its non-performing loans last year totaled about $500 million.

Labrecque said Chase, which increased its reserve for shaky Third World loans in 1987, does not plan anytime soon to boost its reserve beyond the current 25% level.

Most regional banks are reserved at the 50% level. Analysts believe that the higher level more accurately reflects the realities--most Third World loans currently sell for only 50% of their face value.