J.M. Peters Reports $102-Million 4th-Quarter Loss

Home builder J.M. Peters Co. said Wednesday that it lost $102 million in its fourth quarter and $108 million in its latest fiscal year, much of it from unsold houses and from vacant land that the company must sell at a loss.

The loss in the fourth quarter was in contrast with a profit of $11.1 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 1990. Revenue in the fourth quarter fell to $53.7 million; it was $127.5 million in the previous quarter. The company closed sales on 146 homes, less than half the 294 of the quarter before.

Peters said sales for the fiscal year, which ended Feb. 28, also plummeted to $215.5 million, from $315.7 million the year before. In fiscal 1990, Peters reported a profit of $25.3 million.

Stock analysts and the company itself had predicted a sizable loss for the year.

Peters blamed last year’s slumping housing market and the seizure by federal regulators of the company’s biggest stockholder--San Jacinto Savings Assn., a Texas thrift. The seizure cut off one of Peters’ main sources of working capital, the company said in a statement Wednesday.

When coupled with poor sales and the uncertainty over its ownership, Peters was precluded from borrowing elsewhere.

To raise capital, Peters cut back its home-building operations, laid off 142 people, cut management salaries and tried to sell land it had bought.

Of last year’s loss, $55.1 million came from a writedown in the value of the company’s houses and land. Peters expects another $29.2-million loss from selling land now under contract or expected to be sold.

The company also wrote off $19 million in goodwill, a bookkeeping intangible that represents the value of a company as a going concern.

The company’s loss from actually building houses last year was $7.3 million.

The company closed on sales of just 540 homes last fiscal year; the year before, when the market was more robust, the firm closed on 775 sales.

Peters builds larger homes that are valued at more than $300,000--the type hit hardest by the downturn in the market. The downturn was caused by skyrocketing prices that pushed all but a tiny fraction of buyers out of the market, and later by the Gulf War and the recession. Only less-expensive homes are selling very well in today’s market.

The company said it can raise sufficient capital to get through the rest of 1991 by selling land. The company said it has been told that the 86% of its stock that is owned by San Jacinto is up for sale.

“Pending that sale,” Peters said in the statement, “the company’s operations will be limited by a lack of funds to build out projects.”

Peters executives could not be reached for comment late Wednesday afternoon.