LNR Property Nearly Doubles Net Earnings in Q2

MIAMI BEACH, FL-LNR Property Corp., a real estate investment, finance and management company based in here, has almost doubled its net earnings in its second quarter ended May 31, compared with the same quarter last year.Net earnings for the most recent quarter were $47.5 million, or $1.57 per share diluted, compared with $24.8 million, or 84 cents per share diluted, for last year’s quarter. The $1.57 was an 87% increase and an all-time high. For the company’s first two quarters, net earnings totaled $76 million, or $2.51 per share diluted, compared with $59.6 million, or $1.90 per share diluted, for the same time last year.Revenue for the most recent quarter was nearly $154.1 million, compared with about $108.5 million for the 2003 quarter. For the six months ended May 31, revenue totaled $273.9 million, compared with nearly $231 million for that period the year before.”During the past three months, we continued to take advantage of the extremely strong demand for our income producing assets, bringing in almost $300 million of cash proceeds from sales and recognizing over $60 million in gains,” LNR Property Corp. president and CEO Jeffrey P. Krasnoff says in a statement. “A number of these sales were planned for later in the year, but with such unprecedented demand, we were able to close them in the current quarter and realize the value we added earlier.”LNR Property, which has about $1 billion in assets closed or in the pipeline thus far this year, is raising its internal earnings-per-share goal for this year to $3.70 to $3.90.