Shares of Standard Pacific Corp. closed down 14% Thursday after the Irvine-based homebuilder reported third-quarter results late Wednesday that detailed an ongoing decline amid the housing downturn.The company reported a charge-laden net loss of $369 million, more than three times the $119 million loss reported a year earlier.
Analysts on average expected a loss of $93 million.
Write-downs of unsold homes, land and other charges made up $368 million of the loss. Excluding charges, Standard lost $9.7 million.
Revenue for the quarter was down 38% to $400 million.
Analysts had expected revenue of $423 million.
“Housing market conditions deteriorated further during the quarter as the growing level of foreclosure inventory combined with the tumultuous global financial markets, worsening economic conditions and record low consumer confidence further undermined the already weak housing market,” Chief Executive Jeffrey Peterson said. “It does not appear at this time that the earlier efforts by the federal government to stabilize the housing market across the country has had any meaningful impact.”
Standard Pacific builds homes in some of the hardest hit housing markets, including California, Arizona, Nevada and Florida.
Closed sales of homes declined in all of Standard Pacific’s markets. The average price for a Standard Pacific home fell in all but Texas.
Southern California, Arizona and Florida led the price declines with drops of about 25% each from a year earlier.
Standard Pacific completed a critical financing deal in the third quarter.
The company sold $153 million worth of shares to New York-based private equity firm MatlinPatterson Global Advisers LLC.
“The additional equity and cash liquidity has helped to fortify our balance sheet for these challenging times which are expected to persist for the foreseeable future,” Peterson said.