Toll Brothers Reports Quarterly Profit on Tax Benefit

Toll Brothers Inc., the largest U.S. luxury-home builder, reported an unexpected fourth-quarter profit after a tax benefit and decline in writedowns.

Net income in the three months through October was $50.5 million, or 30 cents a share, compared with a loss of $111.4 million, or 68 cents, a year earlier, the Horsham, Pennsylvania- based company said in a statement today. Analysts projected a loss of 7 cents a share, the average of 17 estimates in a Bloomberg survey.