Lennar Corp

The Redeemed Sinner in our popular culture is a mirror-image of the Fallen Saint; each inspires the suspicion that his transformation is never quite complete -- just as the latter's halo can never be entirely sullied by waywardness, the former's sin can never be totally expiated. This thought is prompted by the saga of former white-collar jailbird Barry Minkow, 42, who got back in the news recently by taking the stock of Lennar Corp. down 20% in a single day.

Lennar Corp., the second-worst performer among U.S. home-building stocks last year, fell 14% after posting a wider first-quarter loss. The loss was $155.9 million, or 98 cents a share, compared with $88.2 million, or 56 cents, a year earlier, the Miami-based company said. That exceeded the 78 cents projected in a Bloomberg survey. Revenue fell 44% to $593.1 million. Lennar wrote down $10.2 million for 1,100 home sites it no longer intends to build on and said new orders tumbled 28% even as mortgage rates hit historic lows.

Lennar Corp., one of the nation's largest home builders, said that its sales in the third quarter plunged more than 50% and that it didn't expect the housing market to improve "for some time to come." By slashing costs, Lennar narrowed its loss to $89 million, or 56 cents a share, during the three months ended Aug. 31, from a loss of $513.9 million, or $3.25, in the year-ago quarter. Revenue fell to $1.11 billion from $2.34 billion. Lennar's results were in line with Wall Street forecasts, but its outlook disappointed investors, who sent its shares down almost 8%, or $1.01, to $12.73.

Homebuilder Lennar Corp. will merge offices into a new regional headquarters in Aliso Viejo as part of a $27-million lease agreement, the largest of the year in Orange County. Lennar will move about 500 employees from Mission Viejo and other offices in Orange County to a new 137,352-square-foot building in mid-2004. The property at 25 Enterprise in the Summit Office Campus is owned by developer Parker Properties and its partner, Cigna Investments Inc.

Lennar Corp. said Tuesday it completed the acquisition of Irvine-based home builder Polygon Communities for about $85 million. Lennar said it paid about 50% of the $85-million purchase price with common stock. The acquisition includes an existing backlog of $70 million and about 2,000 home sites. Lennar Corp., based in Miami, is a land and construction company.

The name most whispered these days in local real estate circles has to be "Lennar." One of the nation's largest home builders, Miami-based Lennar Corp. has been linked to ventures with the Baldwin brothers' troubled real estate empire and the Coto de Caza development, among others. Now, the word from John Jaffe, Lennar's local bigwig, is that the company is not interested in buying the bankrupt Baldwin Cos. anymore. "At the present time, our focus is on other things," Jaffe said Monday.

A partnership that includes Lennar Corp., one of the nation's largest home builders, said it had purchased about 800 acres in Huntington Beach, La Mirada and Richmond, Calif. The partnership, which includes Tiger Real Estate Fund of New York, bought the land from Chevron Land and Development Company for an undisclosed amount, and plans to continue developing the land, generating approximately $300 million in revenue.

Home builder Lennar Corp., which sold a controlling interest in the the massive Newhall Ranch project to the California Public Employees' Retirement System, now wants to buy back some or all of its stake. Lennar had sold 68% of LandSource Communities Development to CalPERS for nearly $1 billion at the top of the real estate bubble. It now has a tentative agreement to buy back an undisclosed amount -- presumably at vastly discounted rates.

A U.S. bankruptcy judge in Delaware cleared the way Monday for a home builder to buy back, at a substantial discount, a chunk of the Newhall Ranch development north of Los Angeles that it sold for nearly $1 billion to the California state retirement system in 2007. Lennar Corp. said in a news release that it paid $138 million for a 15% stake in a new company, to be called Newhall Land Development Co. Five lenders will own the other 85%.

In the latest effort to move forward on a massive park planned for the former El Toro Marine base in Orange County, the city of Irvine has struck a new deal with the developer that is supposed to build thousands of homes around the parkland. In a 3-2 vote late Tuesday, the City Council approved substantial changes to its 2005 agreement with Lennar Corp., which bought the base from the Navy with the intention of building dozens of neighborhoods around 1,347 acres of city-owned land christened the Orange County Great Park.