ORANGE COUNTY EARNINGS

Westcorp: The Irvine financial services company, whose principal holdings are WFS Financial and Western Financial Bank, reported first-quarter earnings of $9.3 million, or 35 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $12.2 million, or 46 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier.

The company attributed much of the improvement to proceeds from WFS Financial’s recent $1 billion securitization of auto loans.

The loan sale also helped boost earnings at Westcorp’s auto lending unit, WFS Financial, which reported record first-quarter earnings of $11.6 million, or 45 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $13.3 million, or 52 cents a share, for the same period a year ago. Revenue at WFS nearly doubled to $74.7 million for the quarter ended March 31.

Irvine-based WFS also reported that its delinquencies fell to 2.1% of contracts from 3.6% in December. Officials attributed the improvement to tighter underwriting standards and the completion of a recent restructuring, which had temporarily disrupted collection efforts.