An affiliate of Lennar has received a note on a group of lots in the Century Grand development in Doral from companies controlled by Sergio Pino, the CEO of Century Homebuilders. The debt on the site had been purchased by Flordade, an affiliate of Century Homebuilders, in 2011 from Wells Fargo. Two years earlier, Wells Fargo foreclosed on the more than 152 acres of the site. Lennar reportedly received a 50 percent discount on the note. [SFBJ]

Anthony Grondin has joined Atlantic Pacific Companies as the company’s new project superintendent for the Doral Grande rental community, a 360-unit project on 30 acres at 107th Avenue and NW 74th Street in Doral. Grondin was formerly a manager at Lennar Developers. The Doral Grande is another in a series of multi-family projects underway in South Florida, part of a shift from condo development to rental properties for developers in the region. — Alexander Britell [more]

Miami-based Lennar is opening a second fund to invest in distressed real estate properties next year, after closing a similar $650 million fund by the end of this year. According to CEO Stuart Miller, the company has invested approximately $500 million in its Rialto Investments division. “Further investments to the Rialto program are not done with company capital but instead done with targeted capital that’s focused on the opportunities that we’re pursuing,” he said. [Bloomberg] [more]

Lennar Homes has paid $36 million for a 120-acre site in Parkland near Couty Line Road. The seller was Debuys Property Investment Group, a Lake Worth-based company that also granted Lennar a $27.5 million mortgage. Lennar has first-refusal rights to purchase a site nearby at County Line Road and University Drive, which is slated for a mixed-use development. [SFBJ]
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Miami-based Lennar has won a $584 million judgment against Barry Minkow, who pleaded guilty in March to securities fraud involving false statements about the home builder. Neither Minkow nor Lennar returned messages. The stipulated judgment was entered on June 1 in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. Lennar had sued Minkow and developer Nicolas Marsch for extortion and defamation. Minkow likened Lennar to Enron in 2009, calling it a “financial crime in progress,” both in a press release and online. Minkow, now 44, had been sentenced at age 22 for the ZZZZ fraud scheme. [Dow Jones]
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Even as new U.S. home sales plunged to a record low in February, home builder Lennar Corp. posted an unexpected profit for the three months that ended Feb. 28 thanks to cost-cutting measures and investments in distressed real estate assets, the Miami-based company said this morning. Lennar’s net income for the first quarter of $27.4 million, or 14 cents per share, well above analysts’ predictions of a loss of 7 cents per share. Analysts told Bloomberg News that the boost came largely from its Rialto Capital subsidiary, which was launched in 2007 to focus on distressed properties and loan workouts and was responsible for $11 million in operating income during the first quarter. It’s the fourth consecutive profitable quarter for Lennar, which lost $6.5 million, or 4 cents per share, during the first quarter of 2010 but was nonetheless the second-most profitable home builder in the country last year. Meanwhile, as the Commerce Department said last week, sales of new U.S. homes took a 16.9 percent tumble in February to an annual pace of 250,000 — a record low — though the nosedive didn’t seem to be affecting home builder stocks. [Bloomberg]

Even though sales are lethargic in the new home market nationwide, home builder stocks are hanging tough, according to CNNMoney. Despite a 17 percent drop in the number of new homes sold between February and January, major U.S. home builders like Ryland, KB Home and Lennar have seen their shares stay relatively flat recently, while PulteGroup actually saw its shares climb 3 percent. Ryan Detrick, a senior technical strategist with Schaffer’s Investment Research, said he’s encouraged by the builders’ stock performance. “I’m not saying you should go buy a house because nobody knows where prices are going,” Detrick said. “But even though the data is terrible, builder stocks are holding up.” [CNNMoney]

Supposedly reformed Ponzi schemer Barry Minkow has agreed to a guilty plea on charges that he engaged in insider trading of shares of Miami home builder Lennar while he was working to help the Federal Bureau of Investigation catch other white collar criminals. Minkow has been pegged as the cause of a nearly 20-percent plummet in Lennar stock prices on Jan. 9, 2009, after he published a report that called the company “a financial crime in progress.” Lennar subsequently sued Minkow, who previously served seven years in prison for fraud and felony charges, for libel and extortion. The guilty plea is in a separate, criminal case in which Minkow was accused of using non-public information to short the stocks of companies before making damning allegations against them through his Fraud Discovery Institute. [Miami Herald] 

Lennar Homes has reached an agreement with Mercantil Commercebank to take over the Coral Lakes Kingdom townhome project in Tamiami, originally developed by an affiliate of Precious Homes. The bank foreclosed on the 116-home property in July after filing a $19.4 million lawsuit. Precious sold 44 homes before relinquishing its control of the project, which is partially complete. The Lennar deal hasn’t yet closed, but the company filed an agreement in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Tuesday. [SFBJ]

Miami-based home builder Lennar posted better-than-expected profits in the fourth quarter after cutting costs and boosting earnings on distressed investments. The company, which continues to defy trends in an industry that’s struggling to compete with discounted bank-owned homes and to keep demand up amid high unemployment, took in $32 million in income during the quarter, or roughly 17 cents per share, it said. Last year, Lennar posted profits of $35.6 million, or 19 cents per share on the heels of a $320 million tax break. Analysts from Bloomberg had predicted earnings of 1 cent per share for the fourth quarter of 2010. “We do not know how long they can keep up this treadmill, which makes us nervous, but kudos again this quarter,” said analyst Stephen East of Ticonderoga Securities. “We are confident that 2011 will be another profitable year,” Stuart Miller, Lennar’s CEO, said in a statement. [Bloomberg]