3 California S&Ls; Interested in Texas Thrifts : Deal for Ailing Units to Close Soon, Source Says

Three large savings and loan companies in California are among the bidders that want to acquire two large troubled Texas savings and loans, industry sources confirmed Thursday.

Columbia Savings & Loan in Beverly Hills and the parent companies of World Savings & Loan in Oakland and First Nationwide Bank in San Francisco are among those that want to buy troubled First Texas Savings of Dallas and Gibraltar Savings of Houston. The assets of the two Texas firms total $9.5 billion.

First Texas Savings and Gibraltar Savings are both subsidiaries of First Texas Financial, headed by J. Livingston Kosberg, a prominent political figure in Texas. He announced this week that he would resign as chief executive of the two savings and loan subsidiaries effective Dec. 31.

A source at the Federal Home Loan Bank Board said a deal to sell Gibraltar Savings and First Texas Savings is close. “We hope to have the deal done before the end of the year,” said the source, who asked not to be identified.

Pep Talk

Others in the running to buy the Texas thrifts include two New York firms: Reliance Group, an insurance and investment company, and Ranieri, Wilson & Co., a private firm headed by Lewis Ranieri, a former investment banker at Salomon Bros. in New York. None of the bidders could be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, here in Hawaii, Chairman M. Danny Wall of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board delivered a pep talk to savings and loan executives, whose industry’s total losses approach $10 billion so far in 1988.

“Hold your heads high because you continue to have the best charter going,” Wall told executives attending a convention of the U.S. League of Savings Institutions.

Though most savings and loans are profitable, an estimated 30% are not, and the minority’s losses have overwhelmed the profits of the healthy majority.

Worst Year Ever

The thrift industry has lost an estimated $9.5 billion in the first nine months of 1988, marking its worst year ever.

Wall, who assumed the chairman’s job in July, 1987, ticked off his accomplishments of the past 12 months. He noted that 160 failed thrifts had either been rescued or reorganized in the past 12 months, with another 40 expected before the end of the year. He also said that more than $400 million in new capital has been injected into the Texas savings and loan industry, which has been crippled by fraud and a depressed economy.

Wall also told the gathered executives that 90% of their industry is “doing well,” but he later conceded at a news conference that what he meant was that 90% of the industry has at least some capital.

In fact, of the nation’s 3,100 thrifts supervised by Wall, more than 900 are losing money and nearly as many as that may be insolvent.