Orange S&L; Becoming Privately Owned Mortgage Firm : Thrifts: Long Beach Bank today will complete sale of deposits to Home Savings. It plans to give up S&L; charter.

ORANGE —  Long Beach Bank, which is actually a savings and loan based in Orange, is expected to take a big step today toward its goal of turning in its S&L; charter and converting to a privately owned mortgage company.

The thrift is scheduled to complete the sale of its $546 million in deposits today to Home Savings of America, the nation’s largest S&L.; Home Savings is paying $12.5 million for the deposits.

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Home Savings will merge accounts from four branches--Tustin, Thousand Oaks, Pasadena and Beverly Hills--into nearby Home Savings offices tonight. It will continue to operate the two remaining offices in Long Beach.

Home Savings will hire 39 Long Beach Bank employees, and 10 others will be laid off.

The smaller thrift will become Long Beach Mortgage Co. and will continue to operate 80 loan offices in 14 states, changing the four branches Home Savings is abandoning into loan offices as well.

It also will maintain two other Long Beach loan offices.

The company will have 849 employees, including 461 at its headquarters in Orange, said Jon Daurio, Long Beach Bank’s general counsel.

The S&L; has said previously that it is getting out of the thrift industry because federal regulations make the business too expensive and burdensome.

Before the thrift can turn in its charter, though, outside auditors must verify that it no longer has any deposits and, therefore, no liabilities that the federal government must insure, Daurio said.

That process should be completed by the end of the year, he said.