Maguire Properties’ loss widens

Maguire Properties Inc., a Los Angeles real estate investment trust under siege from some of its largest investors, reported a wider fourth-quarter loss Tuesday as its interest payments ate into earnings.

The company’s loss climbed to $44.5 million, or 95 cents a share, from a year-earlier loss of $8.77 million, or 19 cents.

Funds from operations, a key measure of REITs’ performance, fell to $7.76 million, or 14 cents a share, from $32.9 million, or 60 cents, a year earlier. That was below analysts’ average estimate of 26 cents.

Revenue climbed 28% to $155.4 million from $121.2 million, in part because the company bought 23 office buildings in Los Angeles and Orange counties last year for $3 billion.

Since then, the company’s efforts to sell some of its properties and lower its debt have met with mixed results. Interest expenses on the debt went up $41 million, well over the $34 million jump in revenue.

The debt load has been a sore point for some investors, especially among the hedge funds that own about 35% of the company’s stock.

Dissident investors have pressured Chairman and Chief Executive Robert F. Maguire to step down or sell the company, which is the largest office landlord in downtown L.A. In December a special committee of the company’s board agreed to consider a possible sale.

Maguire said he was ready to buy the company himself and had lined up financing from Persian Gulf investors as well as one of L.A.’s largest real estate investment firms.

Wall Street thinks the top candidates are New York-based Brookfield Properties Corp. and Maguire himself, said analyst Craig Silvers, president of Bricks & Mortar Capital.

Company officials couldn’t be reached for comment.

Maguire shares fell $1.27, or 4.7%, to $26.

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