Another Two Bite the Dust : Recession: Security Pacific Frost Trinen and the brokerage arm of Norris Beggs & Simpson join list of casualties from real estate slump.

When two small but respected Orange County brokerages last week announced plans to quit business, they joined the growing list of companies that have fallen victim to a grueling real estate slump.

Security Pacific Frost Trinen in Costa Mesa and the brokerage arm of Norris Beggs & Simpson in Irvine both said they will cease operations within the next few months.

Last year, Phoenix-based Iliff, Thorn & Co. closed its Orange County office. And in February, Burke Commercial Real Estate in Irvine shut its doors.

Frost Trinen’s fate was sealed when California banking giants BankAmerica Corp. and Security Pacific Corp. announced plans to merge last year.

In 1989, Security Pacific acquired Frost Trinen Partners, the bank’s first venture into the brokerage business. During the past year, however, Bank of America has been encouraging Security Pacific to divest its fringe operations.

“Bank of America wants to focus on core banking,” said Adrian Rodriquez, a spokesman for Security Pacific in Los Angeles.

Richard N. Frost and Robert M. Trinen, who co-founded the brokerage in 1979, say they have no plans to start a new brokerage.

“Without some of the contracts and service agreements we had with Security Pacific, it doesn’t make sense to be in the brokerage business at this time,” Trinen said.

Trinen said that 10 days ago the bank asked him and Frost “to begin winding down in an orderly fashion.”

“We’ll finish up in however long it takes to treat our clients, lenders and brokers correctly,” he said.

Frost Trinen has 40 brokers and 10 secretarial and clerical workers. “Some of our people have already started to look elsewhere for work,” Trinen said. He and Frost will “look for opportunities together and separately.”

Trinen said he regrets the bank’s decision. “We’ve been a good company with a good heritage,” he said. “It’s a sad thing to see our brokerage go away.”

Over the years, Frost Trinen enjoyed a profitable relationship with developer C. J. Segerstrom & Sons, for whom it helped lease office space around the South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa.

In recent years, however, the brokerage has turned its attention to Security Pacific projects. The bank was a big lender to developers during the real estate boom in the 1980s and had built commercial buildings in partnership with developers.

Security Pacific’s decision to close its brokerage “was an organizational one” more than a financial one, Trinen said.

“We’ve been on budget every year (since the bank bought the brokerage),” Trinen said.

Paul Mackey, an analyst with Dean Witter Reynolds in New York, said San Francisco-based Bank of America is eager to unload many of the business assets Security Pacific picked up along the way.

“(Security Pacific) wanted to be a financial supermarket,” Mackey said. “They took their eye off the ball and chased rainbows. Bank of America wants to narrow down the scope. All of that little miscellaneous stuff is going to go bye-bye.”

A small brokerage, especially in a slumping market, “can’t make enough money to make it worth the time and effort” for a large bank, Mackey said.

Norris Beggs & Simpson suffered a bit different fate.

The San Francisco-based company has three divisions in Irvine: commercial real estate brokerage, mortgage finance and asset management services. It opened an Irvine branch in 1984.

A week ago, the company announced that it would phase out the brokerage arm of its Irvine office, though the other two divisions will continue to operate. NB&S; has nine offices in California and the Northwest.

The firm offered to relocate its seven Orange County brokers to one of its other offices, said Ted Covalt, NB&S; regional manager in Irvine. “So far, two or three have expressed interest in relocating,” he said. Other staff members will remain with the firm’s mortgage finance and asset management divisions.

Covalt himself will return to the Portland, Ore., office, his post before moving to Orange County eight years ago. “You better believe I’ll miss Southern California,” he said. “I have really enjoyed my time down here.”

When employees were told last Wednesday that the brokerage would close, it was a “tough, tough day,” Covalt said. “Everybody felt bad about it. It’s been a great office with a great group of people.”

He said the Irvine brokerage ran into insurmountable problems during the recession.