Chargers Owner Wraps Up Settlement

SAN DIEGO —  Alexander Spanos, owner of the National Football League’s San Diego Chargers, sold the remaining four apartment properties he controls through two partnerships for $46.9 million.

The sale was part of a settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed by investors in the partnerships, which Spanos formed in the late 1980s with Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. The partnerships are Prudential-Bache/A.G. Spanos Realty Partners and Prudential-Bache/A.G. Spanos Genesis Income Partners.

In all, 17 properties and their 4,800 apartments were sold for $237.2 million, or $72.2 million more than Spanos offered for them in 1997. That offer was rejected by investors, whose suit claimed they were sold unsuitable investments by Prudential.

In the latest sale, four properties owned by Prudential-Bache/A.G. Spanos Realty were sold to WXI/SPN Real Estate, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. WXI/SPN also bought all nine of Prudential-Bache/A.G. Spanos Genesis’ properties for $126.3 million. The other properties were sold to two other buyers earlier this month.

Officials at Spanos’ A.G. Spanos Cos. in Stockton couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Last year, Spanos settled a class-action lawsuit filed by investors in the partnerships by agreeing to hire Ernst & Young to auction the partnerships’ properties. The 77-year-old Spanos, whose net worth has been estimated at $600 million by Forbes magazine, has long been one of the country’s most active apartment builders. He developed his first apartments in 1960.

Spanos and Prudential-Bache, the securities arm of Prudential Insurance Co. of America and the predecessor to Prudential Securities Inc., set up the partnerships at the top of the market in the late 1980s, when Spanos decided to cut back on his development activities.