Standard Pacific considers sale
Irvine home builder Standard Pacific Corp. raised the prospect of selling itself Monday as it reported its sixth straight quarterly loss. Its shares plunged 21%.
Standard Pacific Chief Executive Jeffrey V. Peterson told analysts in a conference call that falling house prices accounted for much of the company’s losses and will continue to dog the builder for the rest of the year.
In a regulatory filing, the firm said a sale of the company was among six options it was considering, including a merger or sales of non-core assets.
The company said it lost $216.4 million, or $3.34 a share, in the first quarter. That compares with $40.8 million, or 63 cents, in year-earlier quarter. Revenue fell to $348.2 million from $651.1 million a year earlier.
The loss was more than double the $1.52-a-share average loss predicted in a survey of Bloomberg analysts.
Standard Pacific, in business for 42 years, builds homes in eight states: California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Colorado and the Carolinas.
The company’s shares fell 80 cents to $2.97. The stock had traded at a 52-week high of $23.33 on May 22.
The company delivered 42% fewer new homes in Southern California in the three months ended March 31 than it did in the same period last year. In all of California, new-home deliveries for the quarter were down 30% from a year earlier.
The company’s average home price for California was down 19% in the first quarter of 2008 from a year earlier. In Southern California, the average home price fell 10% for the quarter compared with a year earlier.
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