HomeFed Exec Quits to Join in the Bidding : Banking: James E. Stutz says he and partners will seek to buy the failed thrift’s San Diego branches from the RTC.

As the bidding time draws closer for the remaining assets of HomeFed Bank, a top executive of the failed thrift quit Wednesday in order to lead an investor group’s effort to buy some of HomeFed’s branches from the U.S. government.

James E. Stutz resigned as director of retail banking of San Diego-based HomeFed, which has been run by the Resolution Trust Corp. since the giant savings and loan collapsed a year ago because of massive real estate losses.

Stutz, 50, said in an interview that his partnership hopes to buy some or all of HomeFed’s 58 remaining branches in San Diego County. He declined to identify his partners, except to say they include both individual and institutional investors.

HomeFed was among the largest thrifts ever to fail. When seized by regulators, it had $13.5 billion in assets and 206 branches. The RTC has been dismantling HomeFed since the seizure by periodically selling parts of the thrift’s business.

Now the agency is preparing to sell the rest of HomeFed, which today has 136 branches--nearly all in Southern California--and about $5 billion in assets. The S&L; also has 2,200 employees.

Stutz’s move came on the eve of a conference today in which the RTC will give prospective buyers data on HomeFed so they can prepare their sealed bids, industry sources said.

The RTC does not disclose the time or place of the conference except to the would-be bidders. However, RTC spokesman Steve Katsanos in Washington said the agency expects about 100 parties to attend.

The RTC is accepting bids for HomeFed as a whole as well as for “clusters” of HomeFed branches in various regions. The agency hopes to complete the sale or sales this fall, Katsanos said.

Early this year, the agency sold 56 Northern California branches of HomeFed in clusters to several buyers, and early this month a partnership bought a minority interest in 178 HomeFed real estate loans for $490 million.

Stutz, a 22-year veteran of HomeFed, said he will bid partly out of concern that if another California bank or thrift buys the branches, some of HomeFed’s offices in San Diego might be closed in the merger. He also wants them to retain the HomeFed name.

“If a local group doesn’t buy a significant portion of the San Diego branches, we’re going to see maybe another 700 families disadvantaged because their wage earners are laid off” in the consolidation, he said.

Industry sources said Stutz’s group will be competing for HomeFed’s assets with several other California-based banks and thrifts, including First Interstate Bank of California, Great Western Bank, and Home Savings of America, a unit of H.F. Ahmanson & Co.

“There’s no question we would be interested in looking at” HomeFed’s branches, said Great Western spokesman Steve Hawkins, adding that the firm does not know yet which branches it will seek.

Home Savings spokeswoman Mary Trigg said only that “we’re always in the market for attractive acquisitions.” In January, Home Savings bought 24 HomeFed branches in Northern California and about $1 billion in HomeFed loans. First Interstate declined to comment.