Leisure Technology Badly Hurt by $15-Million Loss : Real Estate: Recent lackluster retirement home sales put the Los Angeles-based developer’s future in jeopardy.

Leisure Technology, one of the nation’s largest developers of retirement communities, on Friday announced a quarterly loss of $15.2 million and warned that without “significant” financing and creditor concessions the company “could not continue to operate as a going concern.”

Conceding that it has been badly hurt by the nationwide housing slump, the Los Angeles-based company said it has defaulted on many of its secured loans and other obligations. Leisure said it is engaged in talks with its creditors aimed at restructuring its debt to give the company financial breathing room.

“Due to the continuing lack of confidence in the economy, potential home purchasers are unable to sell their existing home and, as a result, are unable to buy new homes,” said Michael L. Tenzer, chairman and chief executive of Leisure Technology.

“I’m hopeful that the housing market will turn around and that we’ll have strong sales once the war is resolved,” Tenzer said. “But the fundamental economic problems that face the housing industry are very real and serious. These are the most perilous and difficult times I’ve seen in my 30 years in business.”

Like other real estate developers, Leisure has been hurt by the soft housing market, which has depressed home values as much as 30% in some areas of the country. Leisure’s $15.2-million loss for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 1990, contrasts with net income of $231,000 for the same period in 1989. Revenue for the period was $11.3 million, compared to $56.5 million a year earlier.

In recent weeks, real estate brokers say, lower mortgage rates are beginning to lure some potential home buyers from the sidelines. But that hasn’t helped Leisure Technology, which sells homes mostly to older retirees, many of whom have been unable to sell their homes for the prices they want and therefore can’t afford to move.

As a result, few retirees have been buying in Leisure Technology communities such as Leisure Village Ocean Hill in Oceanside, where prices start around $275,000. Tenzer said there was a 63% reduction in closings companywide in Leisure’s third quarter.

To conserve cash for operations, Tenzer announced Friday that the company will not make the dividend payment on its preferred stock or the interest payment on its 13 5/8% senior subordinated notes, both scheduled for March 1. Tenzer also said his company is negotiating to sell some homes and lots to satisfy outstanding indebtedness.

Leisure is scheduled to receive $2 million March 1, but the company said that even with that cash infusion it will not be able to continue without both a restructuring accord with creditors and “access to significant additional external financing in the next few months.”

Company officials declined to discuss how much money the company needs to continue to operate. But analysts say that with a nationwide credit crunch making financial institutions wary of issuing loans to heavily indebted borrowers such as Leisure Technology, the prospects for financial rescue are not good.

“This company has always operated with a relatively high debt load,” said Kenneth Campbell, president of Audit Investments in Montvale, N.J. With few banks making loans to real estate developers, Campbell added, “I think their (Leisure Technology’s) outlook is pretty grim.”