RTC to fall $3B to $4B short of asset goal.

WASHINGTON -- The Resolution Trust Corp. will fall $3 billion to $4 billion short of its asset disposition goal this year, the agency's acting chief executive said Monday.

Jack Ryan, the agency's acting chief, told a meeting of the Thrift Depositor Protection Oversight Board this week that he expects the RTC to reduce its asset holdings. from $40 billion to between $26 billion and $27 billion by yearend.

However, because it is holding on to some loans secured by one-to-four family properties that the agency hopes to sell to minority-owned thrifts, it won't reach its asset goal of $23 billion.

Stephen Katsanos, director of corporate communications for the RTC, said the sale of some assets has been delayed because the agency hopes to encourage minority participation.

Mr. Ryan added that he expects the RTC will dispose of all but approximately $6 billion in assets by the end of 1995, the RTC's scheduled dissolution date.

These remaining assets are beset with environmental and litigation challenges and will take longer to liquidate, Mr. Ryan said.

He also acknowledged that the recovery rate on those troubled assets will not approach the RTC's historical rate of 89 percent of book value.

Mr. Ryan said that the RTC has dealt with 62 thrifts this year, leaving only two in conservatorship: Carteret Federal Savings of Newark, N.J., with $2.5 billion in assets and Standard Federal Savings and Loan of Gaithersburg, Md., with assets of $1.1 billion.

At the meeting, Treasury SeCretary Lloyd Bentsen welcomed Ricki Tigert as the "long-awaited chairman of the FDIC." As FDIC chairman, Ms. Tigert also sits on the oversight board.

Mr. Nielsen writes for Medill News Service.

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