O.C. EARNINGS : Care Enterprises Reports Brighter Results for Quarter

Care Enterprises Inc. reported third-quarter earnings of $479,000, an improvement over a year-earlier loss of $254,000 when the company was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

For the first nine months, the Tustin nursing-home operator earned $805,000, or 9 cents a share, contrasted with a loss of $962,000, or 8 cents a share, last year.

Care Enterprises cautioned that year-to-year per-share figures aren’t directly comparable because the company had 11.3 million shares outstanding last year contrasted with 9.1 million this year.

Revenues were $46.7 million for the third quarter, compared to $51.3 million last year. Per-share earnings were 5 cents during the latest quarter, contrasted with a loss of 2 cents per share a year earlier.

Nine-month revenue was $138.3 million compared to $167.9 million last year.

Care Enterprises emerged from bankruptcy protection at the beginning of this year as a smaller company with new management and most of its stock owned by creditors. The company sold 51 nursing homes to raise cash while in bankruptcy; it still has 51 facilities in California, New Mexico, Ohio and West Virginia.

The company was heavily in debt--the result of an ill-fated expansion--and had piled up $75 million in losses in the two years before filing for bankruptcy in 1988.

The company said that because the price of its stock has increased recently, some big shareholders who own $3 million of the company’s notes have converted them to 2.7 million shares of stock. The company now has 11.8 million shares outstanding.