REAL ESTATE : Analysts Lash Out at Majority Owner of J.M. Peters Co.

The J.M. Peters Co. may be a favorite of high-end home buyers in Orange County, but it appears to rank way down the list of industry analysts Barbara Allen and Alan Goldman.

In a recent report, Allen and Goldman savaged Peters’ majority owner, financially ailing San Jacinto Savings Assn. in Houston, for refusing to divulge information about the future of the publicly traded Newport Beach home builder.

The Kidder, Peabody & Co. analysts weren’t all that nice to company president and namesake J.M. Peters and his crew, either.

“They raked us over the coals,” said Brian Theriot, Peters’ investor relations director.

Actually, they downgraded their estimates of 1990 and 1991 earnings for the company by about 30%, claiming it has “precious little direction or focus” because of the uncertainty over its future ownership.

Allen said she and Goldman aren’t worrying that J.M. Peters itself is in trouble. “It’s a good little company with a good reputation,” she said.

But they voiced concern that because Peters homes are at the top end of the price scale they will be among the hardest hit in a real estate slump.

Mainly, though, the analysts are critical of the paucity of information the Peters company, San Jacinto Savings and the S&L;’s owner, bankrupt Southmark Corp. in Dallas, have provided the stock-buying public about the fate of the S&L;’s 87% stake in J.M. Peters Co.

San Jacinto owns 12 million shares of J.M. Peters and, because of its financial troubles, is seeking to sell them to raise cash. But public knowledge stops there, Allen and Goldman complain.

If the analysts had their way, the investing public would be told whether an outright sale of Peters is the only recourse, whether Peters himself is a potential buyer, and whether San Jacinto wants to sell its shares on the open market or will only deal with a corporate buyer.

Southmark’s proposed reorganization plan, filed in bankruptcy court on Wednesday, sheds no new light on the Peters situation. A spokeswoman for the company said the plan still is that San Jacinto will sell the shares but that no other information is available.