Centennial Group Posts Year’s Loss of $34.9 Million

More red ink gushed out of Centennial Group Inc. during its latest fiscal year. The real estate development company said Monday that its annual loss doubled to $34.9 million, or $1.33 a share.

Centennial, which has been trying since December to reorganize its debts under federal bankruptcy laws, said the loss stemmed mainly from a $30.8-million provision for losses on real estate investments and a huge drop in revenue to only $3.6 million. For the previous year, the company reported revenue of $14.5 million and a loss of $17.6 million, or 67 cents a share.

The financial results, the company said in a prepared statement, reflect the difficult times that real estate companies have had during the continuing recession. Not only are sales slipping, but financing is difficult to obtain, the company noted.

Most of Centennial’s red ink for the latest year came in its final quarter, when the company lost $25.7 million, or 98 cents a share--more than double its fourth-quarter loss of $11 million, or 42 cents a share, the previous year. Quarterly revenue fell to $700,000 from $1.5 million for the same period last year.

Executives at the company could not be reached Monday for comment.

Centennial, based in Orange, went to U.S. Bankruptcy Court last year to thwart imminent foreclosure on 212 acres of prime property in Sacramento County. The company owed $8 million on the partially developed land, which was valued at the time at $28 million.

The company is solvent, though its shareholders’ equity had dropped to $77 million at the end of June from $111.9 million a year earlier.

Ronald R. White, Centennial’s chairman, and John B. Joseph, its vice chairman, founded the company five years ago and took it public to handle their six real estate limited partnerships. Controversy grew quickly; some investors had expected the stock to trade at $10 a share initially, but the market set the price at about $3 a share.

In Monday’s trading on the American Stock Exchange, Centennial’s shares closed at 6.25 cents apiece, unchanged from Friday’s close. The stock has traded as high as 50 cents a share in the past 12 months.

White and Joseph also are the major shareholders in West Coast Bancorp in Newport Beach, the holding company for Sunwest Bank in Tustin, Heritage Thrift & Loan in Brea and Sacramento First National Bank. Joseph is chairman of West Coast, and White is vice chairman.