St. Joe Quarterly Loss Increases

The St. Joe Company (JOE - Analyst Report), a publicly held real estate company, reported a net loss of $13.3 million or 14 cents per share in second quarter 2011 compared with a net loss of $8.6 million or 9 cents in the year-earlier quarter.

For the second quarter of 2011, total revenues stood at $25.3 million compared to $22.0 million in the year-ago quarter. Total revenues for the reported quarter were well ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $21 million.

By segment, St. Joe generated $16.4 million from its Residential segment during the quarter versus $12.9 million in the year-ago quarter. The Commercial segment generated $0.6 million in the reported quarter vis-à-vis $0.1 million in the year-earlier quarter, while Forestry segment recorded $8.2 million versus $7.8 million in the comparable period. However, revenue from Rural Land Sales plummeted during the quarter to $0.1 million from $1.2 million in the prior-year quarter.

During second quarter 2011, St. Joe reduced its operating and corporate expenses by an annual run rate of approximately $15 million. The company further expects to continue reducing its operating expenses throughout the remainder of the year to achieve sustainable cash flows from its core operations.

St. Joe intends to invest approximately $30 million of capital over the next 12 months in its Breakfast Point, RiverTown and Venture Crossings projects, as part of its corporate strategy to capitalize on renewed investor interests in these projects. The company further plans to redeploy the capital to advance infrastructure construction supporting revenue-generating industrial, warehouse and office developments within these projects, which will likely have a positive economic impact on the respective regions in the long run.

St. Joe incurred a cash overhead cost of $12.5 million for the reported quarter compared to $11.9 million in the prior-year period. At quarter-end, the company had $199.8 million of cash and $24.3 million of pledged securities. By the end of second quarter 2011, total debt outstanding was $53.1 million.

We maintain our long-term ‘Outperform’ recommendation on St. Joe, which currently has a Zacks #4 Rank that translates into a short-term ‘Sell’ rating. However, one of its competitors, Rayonier Inc. (RYN - Snapshot Report) presently has a ‘Neutral’ recommendation and a Zacks #3 Rank, which translates into a short-term ‘Hold’ rating.

Read the full analyst report on RYN

Read the full analyst report on JOE