Huntway Names New Officer for Finances : Losses: The firm will also issue a report to rectify quarterly statements that apparently contained inaccuracies.

Huntway Partners L.P., trying to get its operations in order after uncovering irregularities in its books, has hired a new chief financial officer and said it would shortly issue a new report addressing previous quarterly statements that apparently contained inaccuracies.

Huntway, a Valencia-based producer of liquid asphalt for road construction, said Warren Nelson, a former accountant with Price Waterhouse, was named to replace Douglas C. Hansen.

Huntway fired Hansen last December after a company investigation determined Hansen might have written bad checks and “overstated the cash and trade payable accounts, thereby presenting a more favorable liquidity position.”

For the first nine months of 1992, Huntway had reported a loss of $1.9 million on revenue of $80 million.

But the company said it expects a loss of between $12.5 million and $14.5 million for all of last year. In 1991, Huntway posted a profit of $3 million on revenue of $115.8 million.

Huntway also disclosed two weeks ago that a federal grand jury and the Securities and Exchange Commission had begun separate investigations into the company’s finances.

In a 54-page filing with the SEC, Huntway said the grand jury had subpoenaed the company for financial documents.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles would say only that no indictment had been handed up.

The SEC, in keeping with its policy, declined to confirm or deny an investigation had begun.

Huntway also faces two class-action lawsuits, both filed in December in federal court in Los Angeles, by shareholders of the company.

The suits allege that Huntway and its officers violated various federal securities laws, including issuing false and misleading information.

Huntway, which is organized as a master limited partnership--or a partnership with a widespread investor base--went public in 1988 at $11.50 a share.

Its shares plunged 20% after the company’s announcement of expected losses.

Terry Stringer, Huntway’s executive vice president and spokesman, declined to comment on the federal investigations or the lawsuits. He said the company was continuing to operate its three refineries--two in California and one in Arizona.

Huntway’s chief executive, Juan Forster--a Santa Ana resident--is said to be a close friend of Hansen’s, both of them having joined the firm at its inception in 1979.

But in a company release two weeks ago, Forster acknowledged for the first time that “false and inaccurate information appears to have been provided” by Hansen to him and other senior management, “which denied them the data necessary to react to problem areas on a timely basis.”

Huntway said there is no evidence any funds were diverted from Huntway for personal benefit.

Huntway officials provided no explanation of why it expected a loss of as much as $14.5 million for 1992, which would match the largest in its history.

The company previously lost that much in 1990 because of the Persian Gulf turmoil.

Andre Danesh, an investor in Brookline, Mass., whose group holds about 7.7% of Huntway’s shares, said he thought much of the expected losses would be the result of a write-down in the value of Huntway’s assets, a move some analysts see as an attempt to make the company appear more attractive to a prospective buyer.

Stringer declined to comment on that, calling it speculation.

Huntway, in previous SEC filings, said its $1.9-million loss in the first nine months of 1992 was because it was unable to immediately pass on the cost of rising crude-oil prices to its customers in the first half of 1992.

In issuing its third-quarter report last November, Forster said the company expected improved performance in the fourth quarter.

But Wall Street analysts said the company performed poorly in October, and November and December are generally weaker months for Huntway because the colder weather lowers demand for liquid asphalt, which is an oil-based product that is mixed with rocks to create the asphalt used for paving and roofing.

Danesh, the investor, said he remained confident in Huntway. And so do Huntway’s bankers, he asserted.

“The good part about this is that the bankers are not pushing the company into bankruptcy,” he said.

For the interim, Huntway’s bankers have agreed to give the company a reprieve.

In its SEC filing two weeks ago, the company reported that its primary lender--Bankers Trust Co. of New York--as well as several of its note holders, mainly insurance firms, agreed to advance Huntway $3.8 million in cash to continue operations.

But the SEC filing also revealed that Huntway has quickly depleted much of those funds.

The company said it expected a loss of $1.3 million for January and February, and its cash at the end of February was down to $719,533.

As of Feb. 28, the company estimated its net worth--its total assets minus its total debts--at $14.5 million, down from $43 million at the end of 1988.