Roundup: Fleet Lowers the Price It Will Pay for Plaza

PROVIDENCE - Reacting to a deteriorating home lending market, Fleet National Bank has renegotiated its acquisition of Plaza Home Mortgage Corp. to pay $7.625 per share, down from an original price of $10.125.

Under terms of the new deal the Fleet Financial unit will pay about $89 million for the Santa Ana, Calif.-based mortgage lender, as opposed to the $120 million price announced when the deal was first made public in September.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter.

Plaza indicated in November that it might have trouble meeting various terms and conditions of the original deal. Shortly thereafter the company reported a third-quarter loss of $10.2 million, which was later restated to a loss of $11.6 million.

Some of Plaza's woes can be pinned on lower loan originations. The company reported October 1994 loan originations of $189 million, down about 83% from $1.1 billion a year earlier.

In another mortgage play, last week Fleet made a $20-per-share offer for the 19% of Fleet Mortgage owned by the public. That purchase, if completed, would cost Fleet about $190 million.

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