Business briefs: Sears stock soars after good news
Published 8:46 pm Friday, May 22, 2009
Shares of Sears Holdings Corp. soared Friday, a day after the retailer surprised investors by posting a first-quarter profit. The parent of Sears and Kmart stores announced late Thursday that its first-quarter profit was $26 million, or 21 cents per share. That was a marked improvement from a year earlier, when the retailer led by financier Edward Lampert lost $56 million, or 43 cents per share. Excluding one-time items, the company earned $47 million, or 38 cents per share, for the three months that ended May 3, when sales fell more than 9 percent to $10.06 billion, from $11.07 billion. Analysts said Sears’ adjusted per-share profit was less than the 38 cents Sears calculated but were still sharply better than the forecast loss of 88 cents per share. Sears shares rose $5.21, or 10 percent, to $55.40 in trading Friday.
Drone maker wins government contract
A Boeing Co. subsidiary located in the small Columbia River town of Bingen has received a government contract with a potential value of $250 million. That’s more than twice the revenue generated last year by Insitu Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Boeing that designs, develops and manufactures small, unmanned aircraft. Under the agreement, Insitu will build and operate Scan- Eagle systems for U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The ScanEagle drones carry cameras that allow operators on the ground to track targets. One of the drones played a key role in the recent rescue of an American ship captain from Somali pirates.
Fiat’s Opel offer calls for fewer cuts
Italian automaker Fiat said Friday that its offer for Germany’s Opel calls for less than 10,000 job cuts in Europe — far fewer than many experts were expecting. Fiat’s statement was its first official comment on the offer presented Wednesday for Opel and the British brand Vauxhall, both units of General Motors Corp. Fiat said the job cuts would come throughout Europe. That means “the impact for the work force in Germany … would be significantly lower than speculated,” it said, referring to press reports that there would be 18,000 redundancies in Germany.
GMAC receives second bailout
The U.S. government could eventually own a majority stake in GMAC Financial Services following its latest $7.5 billion aid package to the ailing auto financing company. To keep loans flowing to would-be buyers of GM and Chrysler vehicles and shore up its capital position, the Treasury Department agreed Thursday to provide GMAC with $7.5 billion in loans. The new aid marks the second time the government has stepped in to prop up the former lending unit of General Motors Corp. In addition, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took the rare step of allowing the low-rated company to gain access to its debt guarantee program.
From Herald news services
