NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Jan. 27, 2000 (PRIMEZONE) -- William Lyon Homes (NYSE:WLS) announced today that five new directors have been appointed by the existing Board of Directors to fill vacancies created by resignations of previous directors and the expansion of the Board from eight to nine directors. Those appointed to the new positions are Richard E. Frankel, William H. Lyon, William H. McFarland, Michael L. Meyer and Randolph W. Westerfield.
William Lyon, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, stated: "These individuals, when added to our already prestigious Board, will give us a powerful and knowledgeable roster of directors. I look forward to the guidance and counsel which these new directors will bring to the Board as we move forward in the new century."
The Company wishes to thank the four retiring members of the Company's Board of Directors for their valuable service. On behalf of the officers, directors, employees and shareholders of the Company, we extend our thanks to Karen S. Sandler and Marshall E. Stearns of Foothill Capital Corporation, Gregory P. Flynn of Hampshire Equity Partners and special thanks to Dr. Steven B. Sample, President of the University of Southern California, who served as a director of the Company since its initial public offering in 1991.
The continuing directors of William Lyon Homes are William Lyon, Wade H. Cable, James Dalton and Raymond Watt. With the new appointees, the Board of Directors is now comprised of nine members.
Richard E. Frankel has been associated with homebuilding entities for over 23 years. He has held key positions including Chief Financial Officer, Investment Division Manager, Vice Chairman and President of the former William Lyon Homes from 1993 to 1997. Since 1997, he has continued to be involved as a director of the former William Lyon Homes and a shareholder in Duxford Financial Services. He will serve as Chairman of the Company's mortgage company.
William H. Lyon, son of Chairman William Lyon, has worked full time with the former William Lyon Homes since November 1997. Since his hiring, Mr. Lyon has been participating in a training program designed to expose him to the many facets of real estate development. Currently, Mr. Lyon is assisting in project management. Mr. Lyon received a dual B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Product Design from Stanford University in 1997.
William H. McFarland, an elected member of the California Building Industry Foundation Hall of Fame, has had a distinguished career in residential real estate and large-scale community development in California. During his 28 years in the industry, he has been responsible for building more than 40,000 homes and apartments. Much of his career was spent associated with The Irvine Company in Orange County where he oversaw the design and development of the internationally acclaimed master-planned communities on The Irvine Ranch. He was Executive Vice President and a Director of The Irvine Company, and also served as Chief Executive Officer/President and a Director of Irvine Community Development Company, the residential community development subsidiary. Mr. McFarland was also Chief Financial Officer/President and a Director of Irvine Apartment Communities, the multi-billion dollar public real estate investment trust created by The Irvine Company to manage and expand its apartment community holdings in Orange County, Silicon Valley and San Diego. Today, Mr. McFarland is a private developer and investor in real estate projects in California. Also, he is a founding member of the Tech Coast Angels, a venture capital organization whose members invest and provide business and management guidance to start-up technology companies in Orange County.
Michael L. Meyer is Chief Executive Officer of Michael L. Meyer Company, which is a principal and/or advisor to a select group of real estate entities in providing business and financial strategies and capital access assistance. He is a Principal in TransPac Partners L.L.C. which acquires distressed Japanese real estate assets and Pacific Capital Investors which recently acquired a portfolio of non-performing bank loans secured by real estate in Japan. He is also a principal in Advantage4 which partners with real estate developers in providing bundled telecommunication solutions to new master-planned communities, multifamily and commercial complexes. Mr. Meyer retired September 30, 1998, as Managing Partner of the E&Y Kenneth Leventhal Real Estate Group of Ernst & Young LLP Orange County office. Having started with Kenneth Leventhal & Company in Los Angeles in 1963, Mr. Meyer has been active in the Southern California and national real estate industry for 36 years, and he was a key partner in growing the firm to become the largest group of real estate accounting and consulting professionals in the nation. For outstanding achievements in the real estate industry and community, Mr. Meyer was inducted into the California Building Industry Foundation Hall of Fame in June 1999. Mr. Meyer is a board member of City National Bank; founder and board member emeritus of the Orange County Forum; director of the Construction Industries Alliance for the City of Hope; past chair of the United Way's Alexis de Tocqueville Society; past chair of the Advisory Board of the Real Estate Program of the UCI School of Management; Executive Advisory Board Member of the UCI School of Management; member of the UCI Chief Executive Roundtable; Advisory Board Member of the Lusk School of Real Estate Development at USC; and Board member of the Wellness Community and the Orange County Museum of Art.
Dr. Randolph W. Westerfield is the Dean of the University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business and the holder of the Robert R. Dockson Dean's Chair of Business Administration. From 1988 to 1993, he served as the chairman of the School's finance and business economics department and The Charles (Tex) B. Thornton Professor of Finance. Dr. Westerfield came to USC from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he was a member of the finance faculty for 20 years. His areas of expertise include corporate financial policy, investment management and analysis, mergers and acquisitions, and stock market price behavior. Dr. Westerfield has served as a member of the Continental Bank trust committee, supervising all activities of the trust department. He has been consultant to a number of corporations, including AT&T, Mobil Oil and Pacific Enterprises, as well as to the United Nations, the U.S. Department of Justice and Labor and the State of California. He is co-author of Corporate Finance (1998), Fundamentals of Corporate Finance (1997), and Essentials of Corporate Finance (1998), three of the leading text books in corporate financial management, and the author of more than 30 monographs and articles.
In November 1999, the Company, which was named The Presley Companies, acquired substantially all of the assets and assumed substantially all of the liabilities of William Lyon Homes. In December, the Company changed its name to "William Lyon Homes". William Lyon Homes is one of the oldest and largest homebuilders in the Southwest with development communities in California, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. The Company currently has 50 sales locations and its corporate headquarters are located in Newport Beach, California.