Business Notes AUCTIONS

In its heyday, the Lamar Savings Association boasted four large teak elephants in its Austin lobby. They may have impressed the customers, but they did not help the balance sheet. Last week more than 1,000 bidders crowded into a Houston warehouse to see the elephants auctioned off for $1,600 to $2,000 apiece, along with the property of 33 other failed Southwestern thrifts. A 1957 Bentley automobile went for $10,050. Besides computers and other office equipment, the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation also sold hand- carved ivory tusks and even two kitchen sinks.

The four-day auction brought in more than $800,000. The FSLIC, which currently holds $9.6 billion in assets seized from failed thrifts, has raised more than $300 million this year by selling off their property. That comes to roughly one five-hundredth of what the S & L bailout will cost U.S. taxpayers in the next ten years.