IndyMac Profit Increases 34%

Mortgage banking specialist IndyMac Bancorp Inc. reported a 34% jump in third-quarter profit Friday, handily beating analysts’ forecasts, but said earnings might taper off next year as an unprecedented wave of home loan refinancings subsided.

IndyMac also increased its quarterly dividend to 20 cents a share from 15 cents.

In the quarter ended Sept. 30, IndyMac earned $49.7 million, or 87 cents a share up from $37.2 million, or 64 cents, a year earlier.

Revenue in the quarter surged 32% to $199.6 million from $150.8 million.

Wall Street had expected earnings of 74 cents a share on revenue of $161 million. IndyMac shares rose $2.56, or 9.5%, to $29.40 in trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, IndyMac noted that the Mortgage Bankers Assn. was projecting that home loan volume would fall 52% next year. Because of that decline, the Pasadena-based thrift projected that 2004 earnings per share “will lag its long-term growth rate and may even decline slightly as we make this transition.”

Chief Executive Michael Perry said IndyMac should resume its targeted growth rate of 15% annually in per-share earnings in 2005. The firm’s 10-year compounded annual growth rate is 28%.