Open house: Lewis Homes is for sale

Thursday, Aug. 27, 1998 | 11:10 a.m.

Lewis Homes, one of the top home builders in the Las Vegas Valley, is up for sale and one of the top suitors is a California-based rival.

Solomon Smith Barney was hired to broker the sale of the Southern California-based Lewis, which has built more than 50,000 homes in California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah since 1955.

The company closed on more than 1,500 Las Vegas homes in 1996. It annually competes with Del Webb Corp. of Phoenix for the title of largest Las Vegas home builder.

The company named by analysts as the leading prospect for acquiring Lewis: Kaufman & Broad Home Corp., which built more than 10,000 houses in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado and Utah last year. K&B, the largest home-builder west of the Mississippi River, also has residential operations in Mexico and France.

Ron Ruloff, vice president of sales and marketing for Lewis Homes in Las Vegas, dismissed rumors of an imminent sale as speculation. But he confirmed Solomon Smith Barney is searching for prospects to acquire the company.

"So far, nothing has turned up," he said.

Kaufman & Broad, the first home builder to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, said through a spokeswoman the company does not comment on pending negotiations. She would not confirm if company officials are talking to Lewis about an acquisition.

But analysts who track the highly competitive Las Vegas home building market say K&B is the best bet for taking over Lewis' holdings.

"It makes a great deal of sense because they operate in the same locations," said an analyst who asked not to be identified. "Kaufman & Broad's goal is to be No. 1 or No. 2 in any market in which they operate and they could go a long way toward achieving that goal by buying Lewis."

"A number of public companies have been in an acquisition mode lately," said Bob Bray of The Meyers Group, a California-based housing research company. "It makes it a lot easier to expand. Instead of setting up an entire division, you acquire a builder with existing land holdings. Sometimes it's easier to acquire a whole company than raw land."

Ruloff said the closely held Lewis has never been more profitable. Experts say it's going to be sold due to the failing health of company founders Ralph and Goldy Lewis, who are in their 80s.

The Lewis family hopes to liquidate assets in such a way as to avoid a big tax bill, an expert said, and the company's popular Las Vegas chief executive, Robert Lewis, met recently with family members to discuss options.

Kaufman & Broad is not the only company analysts have speculated to be interested in Lewis Homes. Other companies mentioned: Florida-based Lennar Corp., which acquired the Pacific Greystone neighborhoods in Southern Nevada in 1997; Centex, a Dallas company that wants to break into the Las Vegas market and competes with Lewis in California; and Phoenix-based Ryder Homes.