Columbia Savings & Loan’s third-quarter earnings dropped...

Columbia Savings & Loan’s third-quarter earnings dropped 48% to $16.3 million, continuing a general pattern of lower earnings that has run for several quarters at the large Beverly Hills-based thrift. Nine-month earnings of $48.7 million are less than one-third of that in the 1987 period. Columbia Savings, which had said previously that 1988 would not be a banner year, said the main difference between the figures is that this year’s numbers do not have the large gains from the sale of assets generated in 1987.