
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 9, 1990                   TAG: 9005090620
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: C-6   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

GLOBAL AUCTION PLANNED

The federal board that inherited $17 billion in real estate from insolvent S&Ls decided Tuesday to stage a worldwide "satellite auction" this summer to unload up to $300 million worth of distressed shopping centers, office buildings and hotels.

"We hope to make it the largest auction in the history of the world," said Jim Gall, chairman of the Miami-based auction house retained by the federal Resolution Trust Corp. to run the sale.

The global auction is sure to have a Sun Belt flavor, since most of the skyscrapers and other speculative property the government acquired through the collapse of S&Ls is located in Texas, Florida, Arizona and California.

Gall said he expects to put together a satellite auction, in which an American auctioneer will take bids from potential buyers assembled in various American cities, as well at bidding sites in the Middle East, Asia and Europe.

Up to now, the largest auction in history is believed to be the Sotheby's sale of French impressionist art last November, in which $269 million worth of paintings including a $40.7 million Picasso were auctioned in about two hours.

The satellite auction will offer only commercial projects with appraised values of $1 million or more, and will accept bids starting at 70 percent of each property's appraised value.

Regional auctions of commercial and residential property will be held later under the policy adopted by the board.

In its 4-0 decisions to approve auctions and discount sales, the Resolution Trust Corp. board hoped to speed up the disposition of the more than 30,000 pieces of hard-to-sell commercial and residential property which the federal government has gradually acquired as it took over failed S&Ls.

"It's time for us to move this property out as fast as we can still exercising some reasonable approach to the matter," said board member C.C. Hope. "Getting rid of that property is the best thing for us and for the property and putting it back into production."

Local Resolution Trust Corp. offices will begin offering the first round of new discounts on private homes through real estate brokers later this month, said Gary Bowen, the agency's deputy director.

by CNB