Post Loses Approximately $5M in Q3

ATLANTA-Post Properties Inc. lost $4.5 million in the third quarter and $3.1 million for the nine months ended Sept. 30, the company reports.

For shareholders, that meant a loss of 12 cents per diluted share in the quarter and a loss of eight cents per share for the nine-month period. In third quarter 2002, Post had net income of $3.3 million, or nine cents per share. For the nine months last year, the REIT had net income of $39.6 million, or $1.07 per diluted share. However, excluding severance and proxy charges, net income available to common shareholders totaled $20.7 million, or 55 cents per diluted share, for the first nine months of this year.

The company’s funds from operations numbers also lagged last year’s numbers. FFO for the quarter totaled $16.8 million, or 40 cents per diluted share, compared to $25.3 million, or 60 cents per share, in third quarter 2002. Excluding asset impairment charges, FFO for the quarter totaled $20.1 million, or 48 cents per share, compared to $27.2 million, or 65 cents per share, last year.

For the nine-month period, FFO totaled $20.2 million, or 48 cents per share, versus $75.2 million, or $1.79 per diluted share, in the same 2002 period. Post president David Stockert says the company is on a steady course to regain profitability by continuing to sell off selected properties.

“We continue to pursue an aggressive and successful program of asset sales designed to achieve several important benefits,” he says. The company is doing this by “taking advantage of high demand for apartment properties as a net seller, and realizing the value of our assets, while shaping the portfolio to produce over time a more diversified and stable cash flow stream.”

Through third-party brokers, Post is currently marketing 11 properties with 5,175 apartment units. The for-sale portfolio comprises 403 units in one apartment building in Phoenix; six apartment communities with 2,728 units and an average age of 16 years in Atlanta; three buildings with 1,304 apartments and an average age of 14 years in Dallas; and a 15-year-old, 740-unit community in Orlando.