Shrinking spreads helped pare second-quarter profit at...

Shrinking spreads helped pare second-quarter profit at H.F. Ahmanson & Co., the Irwindale-based parent of Home Savings of America, the nation’s largest thrift. Ahmanson notched net income of $62.2 million in the quarter just ended, contrasted with $73.5 million in the year-ago quarter.

Charles R. Rinehart, chief executive of Ahmanson and Home Savings, noted in a statement Tuesday, however, that declining interest rates this spring caused the net interest margin to widen slightly from 2.27% in the first quarter of this year to 2.38% in the second. The margin in the second quarter of 1994 had been 2.81%.