Advanta

Advanta Corp. reported its highest profits in a year yesterday, as shareholders prepared to vote on the sale of the Spring House company's credit-card business and a buyback of its depressed stock. Having posted an unexpected loss in the year's first quarter, Advanta recorded its third straight quarterly earnings increase during the three months that ended Dec. 31. Fourth-quarter profits totaled $43.6 million. That's down from $45.2 million a year earlier. Still, it was more than half the $71.6 million the company earned for all of 1997.

Is Advanta Corp. running out of money? Not according to Advanta. But FleetBoston Financial Corp., which is suing the loan company for $140 million from a 1998 business deal, is so worried about Advanta's finances that it wants Delaware's Court of Chancery to speed the scheduled September 2001 trial to an earlier April date. "Advanta's financial viability is in jeopardy, and the deterioration of Advanta's franchise will only continue," a Fleet consultant, Owen J. Carney, wrote in an affidavit accompanying a report on Advanta's finances, which the court sealed to prevent public scrutiny.

Advanta Corp., the Horsham financial-services company, yesterday reported a $9.1 million loss for 1988. The company attributed the loss to one-time costs of settling a shareholder suit, operating losses from its installment-loan business and expenses of a corporate restructuring. In the fourth quarter, Advanta had costs of $2.5 million as part of a previously announced settlement of a shareholder suit that accused the firm of issuing misleading and false information about its financial condition.

Advanta Corp. creditors, stockholders, and others offered a list of objections last week to the bankrupt Montgomery County credit card firm's liquidation plan ahead of a hearing scheduled for Thursday in Wilmington. The committee representing Advanta's unsecured creditors said in a court filing that court approval of Advanta's proposed plan would be "futile and impose significant and unnecessary expense and delay" on the liquidation process because "it is highly likely that the vast majority of creditors" will vote against it. That would force a second round of voting, costing the bankruptcy estate money that could otherwise be used to pay off Advanta creditors.

Advanta Corp., the Horsham banking and consumer-lending company, said profits skyrocketed during the second quarter because of wider spreads between interest rates earned on loans and rates paid on deposits and other borrowings. The 148 percent increase in net income pushed the company's annualized return on stockholders' equity to 28.33 percent during the quarter, beating its target of 25 percent. "Our focus on high-margin, niche consumer markets has enabled us to continue to grow the business at a controlled pace while generating attractive returns," president Richard Greenawalt said.

Advanta Corp., the Horsham-based marketer of financial services, yesterday reported a 97 percent decline in earnings for the third quarter. Net interest income - the difference between what the company pays for deposits and makes on loans - also declined dramatically. Advanta attributed that decline to a change in accounting for loan-origination costs and a sharp reduction in loans as part of the company's continuing restructuring efforts. Last year, Advanta changed its name from TSO Financial Corp.

CardWorks Servicing L.L.C. is taking over the servicing of Advanta credit cards, the Woodbury, N.Y., company said. Customers of Advanta, Plymouth Meeting, which filed for bankruptcy protection last November, still owe $1.7 billion on more than 200,000 accounts.    - Harold Brubaker

Advanta Corp.'s fourth-quarter net income plummeted 59 percent, as the Spring House credit card issuer built reserves to cover late payments by its small-business customers. "Although we're disappointed with the impact of the current economy on our recent results, we believe the small-business market will continue to provide opportunities for us going forward," Dennis Alter, Advanta's chairman and chief executive officer, said in a news release yesterday. Advanta's widely held Class B shares closed down 47 cents, or 4.87 percent, at $9.18 in Nasdaq trading.

Advanta Corp., the Horsham-based financial-services company formerly known as TSO Financial Corp., lost more than $6 million in the fourth quarter of 1987. The company attributed the loss mainly to a $3.6 million after-tax writeoff related to its decision to get out of the business of making unsecured loans. Also contributing to the loss was the sale in September of $290 million in credit-card receivables, to lower-than-expected additions of consumer loans and higher operating expenses.

An "outstanding" quarterly earnings report by Advanta Corp. yesterday still didn't live up to Wall Street's inflated expectations for the Horsham credit-card marketer, as traders sent its share price down sharply. Advanta reported record profits for both the fourth quarter and full year of 1992. Earnings for the most recent period were up 88 percent over the 1991 quarter. "People had started expecting a much better-than-anticipated quarter," pushing Advanta stock up around $10 a share over the past two weeks, said analyst Joseph LaManna, of William Blair & Co. in Chicago.

IN THE REGION Clean Energy to open CNG station Clean Energy Fuels Corp. on Thursday will open the region's latest compressed natural gas refueling station in Bucks County, part of a growing infrastructure that natural gas advocates hope will broaden the market for the fuel. The station at 451 Tyburn Rd., Fairless Hills, will be the first public station in Southeastern Pennsylvania, though Peco Energy Co. has five private locations around Philadelphia. There are four stations in South Jersey, including a Clean Energy public station in Camden.

The property is a neighborhood unto itself. It hosts four buildings, one a 20,000-square-foot "play house," with swimming pool and indoor and outdoor tennis courts. Impressive? The fortress-style main house, built in 1998 and designed by Kimmel Center architect Rafael Viñoly to accommodate the owner's art collection, is twice that size. If you're in the market for an upgrade, all this is available for a mere $30 million, or about $150,000 a month, taxes included, with 10 percent down and a 30-year fixed mortgage.

The first checks for bankrupt Advanta Corp.'s retail note-holders, who are owed $140.6 million, could be cut by the end of this month, an attorney for the trustee overseeing Advanta's liquidation told a bankruptcy court judge in Wilmington on Tuesday. Advanta, a Montgomery County credit-card bank for small businesses that collapsed during the deep recession of 2008 and 2009, had estimated in its liquidation plan last year that note-holders would receive at least $90.5 million of the money owed to them, with a chance of receiving 100 percent of their principal.

Advanta Corp.'s liquidation plan was approved Friday by a bankruptcy judge in Wilmington. The approval, which followed a confirmation hearing Wednesday, is a major step toward an initial distribution of an estimated $42 million to Advanta's 2,644 retail noteholders, who are owed a total of $140.6 million. Those noteholders are projected to recover at least 64.4 percent of their principal, but could be repaid in full, depending on how much money is generated by a remnant of Advanta's defunct credit-card business and other assets.

Advanta Corp. creditors, stockholders, and others offered a list of objections last week to the bankrupt Montgomery County credit card firm's liquidation plan ahead of a hearing scheduled for Thursday in Wilmington. The committee representing Advanta's unsecured creditors said in a court filing that court approval of Advanta's proposed plan would be "futile and impose significant and unnecessary expense and delay" on the liquidation process because "it is highly likely that the vast majority of creditors" will vote against it. That would force a second round of voting, costing the bankruptcy estate money that could otherwise be used to pay off Advanta creditors.

Advanta Corp.'s bankruptcy has hit some choppy waters that could delay payments to retail investors owed $140.6 million by the defunct Montgomery County credit card company. At a hearing Wednesday in Wilmington, the committee representing Advanta's unsecured creditors said it was not supporting the company's liquidation plan. The plan was filed Nov. 2 and said retail noteholders - the largest block of unsecured creditors - could expect to recover 64.4 percent to 100 percent of their investments.

Advanta Corp., the bankrupt Montgomery County credit card issuer, had good news this week for retail noteholders who are owed $140.6 million. Those investors, many of them retirees who bought the notes because they paid relatively high interest rates, are expected to recover from 64.4 percent to 100 percent of their investments under a liquidation plan filed late Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington. "I think it's a good range," Philip M. Browne, Advanta's chief financial officer, said Wednesday.

Investors who bought notes from Advanta Corp. before the Montgomery County credit card company filed for bankruptcy last November have been forced into a nerve-racking gamble. Do they take an offer to sell their notes to professional investors who specialize in bankruptcies, for up to 60 cents on the dollar, or do they wait - betting they will get more out of the ultimate bankruptcy settlement? Jim Foster of Audubon, Montgomery County, considered the 60 percent offer from Liquidity Solutions Inc., of Hackensack, N.J. "This sounds pretty good," he said Monday in an e-mail.