Idanta Partners

A group led by Idanta Partners, a La Jolla investment firm whose principal owners are the Bass brothers of Texas, has acquired 7.2% of HomeFed Corp.'s outstanding shares, according to a Friday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Idanta founder and general partner David J. Dunn on Friday maintained that his firm acquired the HomeFed stock for investment purposes only.

A group led by Idanta Partners, a La Jolla investment firm whose principal owners are the Bass brothers of Texas, has acquired 7.2% of HomeFed Corp.'s outstanding shares, according to a Friday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Idanta founder and general partner David J. Dunn on Friday maintained that his firm acquired the HomeFed stock for investment purposes only.

Prime Computer chairman David J. Dunn, responding to allegations of insider trading, has denied any wrongdoing in his purchase of nearly $1 million in Prime stock a week before MAI Basic Four Inc. launched a hostile tender offer for his firm. MAI, a Tustin computer maker, alleged Wednesday in a federal court lawsuit in Massachusetts that Dunn and his Idanta Partners investment fund bought the stock on Nov.

Moody's Investors Service on Tuesday downgraded HomeFed Bank's subordinated debt and deposit ratings, a move that affected about $110 million of long-term debt. Moody's linked the rating downgradings to an increase in foreclosed commercial real estate and nonperforming loans. "We're disappointed by the downgrade," HomeFed spokeswoman Kaye Rowan said Tuesday. "But we understand that the purpose of these (ratings) agencies is to be conservative."

Embattled HomeFed Bank announced Tuesday that it has hired a new outside auditor and added a board director. The auditing firm Arthur Andersen & Co. replaces KMPG Peat Marwick. HomeFed chief executive Thomas Wageman decided that hiring a new auditing firm would "bring a fresh look to things," a HomeFed spokeswoman said Tuesday.

MAI Basic Four, a Tustin computer maker, charged Wednesday that Prime Computer had misled federal regulators about its takeover defenses and accused Prime Chairman David J. Dunn of trading stock on inside information. The accusations were the latest salvo in MAI's $970-million hostile tender offer for Natick, Mass.-based Prime, a major manufacturer of minicomputers. MAI, which is controlled by New York investor Bennett S. LeBow, launched its $20-a-share bid for Prime three weeks ago.

Hard hit by troubled real estate loans, HomeFed Bank has told federal regulators that if the economy fails to improve, its problem loans could increase by $250 million in the fourth quarter to a total of about $1 billion by year's end. That news from the nation's fifth-largest savings and loan was viewed as dramatic proof of California's weakening economy and its increasingly lackluster real estate market.

David J. Dunn, founder and general partner of Idanta Partners, describes himself as an "occasional" contrarian who sometimes buys severely depressed stocks with the expectation that, in the long run, they will see rosier days. Dunn said Monday that Idanta's recent purchase of 7.2% of troubled HomeFed Corp.'s outstanding shares is comparable to the La Jolla-based investment firm's 1972 acquisition of stock in two large advertising agencies that were then nearing record market lows.

When Steven Dunn's daughter Beau was a baby, she frequently tried to grab one of the succession of Diet Cokes her father constantly drinks. One day Dunn fashioned a nipple on an empty soda bottle, poured baby formula into it and fed his daughter. From this came a new business idea: Dunn reasoned that if he could snare the rights to soft drink logos, he could probably sell lots of baby bottles. Baby bottles are a high-profit-margin business, and demand is high given current U. S.