CNA-parent Loews posts $647 mil loss

Loews Corp., the holding company run by New York's Tisch family, posted its third straight quarterly loss on the declining value of investments at its insurance unit and a charge at a natural gas business.

The first-quarter loss was $647 million, or $1.49 a share, compared with profit of $662 million, or $1.05, in the same period a year earlier, the New York-based company said in a statement today.

Loews, which runs hotels, insurers and gas-exploration businesses, has seen its stock slide more than 40 percent in the past year as its units suffer from falling prices for commercial insurance and as the recession slowed travel. U.S. hotel occupancy tumbled 12 percent to 55 percent in March from a year earlier, according to Smith Travel Research.

The company owns a majority of Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc., the second-largest deepwater oil driller by market value. First-quarter profit rose 20 percent, beating analyst estimates as producers pushed ahead with long-term deep-sea projects, Diamond said April 23. The Houston-based driller said net income advanced to $348.6 million from $290.5 million.

Loews owns 90 percent of CNA Financial Corp., the Chicago-based property and casualty insurer, which earlier today reported its third straight unprofitable period. The loss of $195 million compares with a profit of $187 million a year earlier. The company wrote down holdings including asset-backed securities and investments tied to financial firms by $399 million in the quarter.

Writedowns, Losses

CNA has recorded $3.8 billion in writedowns and unrealized losses on investments through the end of 2008. Loews in October agreed to buy $1.25 billion in preferred shares of CNA after the insurance unit posted a third-quarter loss on investment declines and hurricane claims.

Loews also took a $1 billion non-cash impairment charge at its HighMount Exploration & Production LLC business reflecting "declines in commodity prices," the company said.

The hotel business contributed $18 million in losses, compared with profit of $11 million a year earlier after Loews wrote down its entire investment in a property.

Laurence Tisch, father of Loews Chief Executive Officer Jim Tisch, and Preston Robert Tisch, his uncle, started Loews when they bought a New Jersey hotel in 1946. The family owns about 24 percent of the company, according to Bloomberg data.