Regulators Agree to Sell Lincoln S&L; Stake in TCS
Regulators running insolvent Lincoln Savings & Loan have agreed to sell the Irvine thrift’s stake in TCS Enterprises back to the San Diego financial-services firm for 30% of the original price, the company’s chairman said Tuesday.
A spokesman for Lincoln’s former parent company immediately criticized regulators for selling too cheaply.
TCS will pay $1.50 a share--$867,000 in all--to buy back the 20% interest that Lincoln acquired in January, 1985. The original purchase price was $5 a share, or nearly $2.9 million.
Thomas C. Stickel, chairman and chief executive of the firm that bears his initials, said regulators rejected his offer to pay the S&L; the original purchase price because the terms included payment over 10 years.
“The RTC wanted a cash offer, which we eventually settled upon at $1.50 per share,” Stickel said in a prepared statement. He could not be reached for further comment.
RTC executives also could not be reached for comment.
“This is a great deal for TCS and a terrible deal for the taxpayers,” said Bradley J. Boland, a spokesman for American Continental Corp. in Phoenix. The company owned Lincoln when regulators seized the thrift on April 14, 1989. “This is another example of how the taxpayers are being pillaged by the federal government’s incompetence and inability to maximize values for Lincoln’s assets,” Boland said.
TCS is the company that hired Lawrence W. Taggart in late 1984 from his job as commissioner of the state Department of Savings and Loan. It was Taggart who introduced Stickel to Charles H. Keating Jr., American Continental’s chairman.
While TCS has been profitable since Lincoln’s investment, it is expected to announce soon substantially lower earnings for its fiscal second quarter, which ended April 30. TCS recently has been losing money on a mortgage-packaging arrangement with Great American Bank, a San Diego savings and loan that has been crippled by its Arizona real estate operations.
Chris Kraul, San Diego business editor, contributed to this story.
