American Continental’s Sale of 3 Properties OKd

The parent firm of Irvine-based Lincoln Savings & Loan won permission from a federal bankruptcy court to sell three properties it owns for about $22 million.

The sale will raise up to $7.4 million, after loans and liens are paid off, for American Continental Corp., which filed a bankruptcy petition April 13 to reorganize its debts. Regulators seized Lincoln Savings the next day, saying it was being operated in an unsafe and unsound manner.

The properties are owned directly by the company, not Lincoln Savings. The money will go into an escrow account to pay off creditors.

As part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, American Continental must get court approval for such transfers of property.

Neither federal regulators nor lien holders objected to the sale of the three properties: a Florida home and a shopping center and a commercial lot in Arizona.

The sales are the company’s first transfers since filing for bankruptcy. The total purchase price represents about 5% of American Continental’s $455 million in assets held at the corporate level. Its Lincoln unit has $5.3 billion in assets.

Under the court approval, the McClintock Fountains shopping center in Tempe, Ariz., which was appraised at $15.5 million, will be sold for $14.2 million to $15 million, depending on the occupancy rate at the time of sale. The Florida home, appraised at $4 million, is to be sold for $3.95 million, and the lot in Phoenix, appraised for $3.6 million, will be sold for $3.34 million.