Kroger Co

Kroger Co., the nation's largest grocery chain, posted a 25% drop in second-quarter profit and warned that it might not meet its yearly sales target as it struggled to regain business lost during Southern California's grocery strike. The Cincinnati-based chain's earnings performance fell short of analysts' expectations, sending the company's shares down 4.3% for the day, closing at $15.98, off 72 cents, on the New York Stock Exchange. Kroger's shares have fallen 14% this year.

Kroger Co., citing the final effect of the 4 1/2-month California labor dispute on its Ralphs grocery chain, Tuesday said its fiscal first-quarter profit tumbled 25% from a year earlier. The dispute erased $71.6 million of Kroger's net income -- equal to 10 cents a share -- in the 16-week quarter ended May 22, Kroger said. That was the main reason the Cincinnati-based company's overall profit fell to $262.8 million, or 35 cents a share, from $351.5 million, or 46 cents a share, a year earlier.

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have convened a grand jury to investigate whether managers at some Ralphs grocery stores violated federal criminal laws during the five-month Southern California grocery strike, the chain's parent company said. Kroger Co. said in a regulatory filing that it was cooperating with authorities.

The owner of the Ralphs grocery chain has set aside $116 million to compensate two rivals under a controversial mutual-aid pact the trio devised in anticipation of the California supermarket strike and lockout, regulatory filings show. Kroger Co.'s payout to Safeway Inc. and Albertsons Inc. will probably be between $72 million and $75 million after taxes, analyst Andrew Wolf of BB&T Capital Markets said Monday.

Kroger Co. said Wednesday that it would close 15 underperforming Ralphs supermarkets in Southern California in the next two months as it girded for competition with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Kroger said it would try to transfer the 600 employees to other Ralphs markets and that layoffs were unlikely. The company said the closings were unrelated to the 4 1/2-month supermarket strike and lockout that recently was settled.

Stocks of the three supermarket companies in the recent California grocery strike and lockout fell sharply Wednesday, the day after two of them, Kroger Co. and Albertsons Inc., warned that their post-strike costs would contribute to lower profits this year. The costs will include extended price cutting and other promotions aimed at regaining customers the chains lost during the strike. And this week the stores rolled out sales in force.

The just-ended California supermarket strike and lockout erased more than $235 million in combined fourth-quarter profit at Kroger Co. and Albertsons Inc., but they said Tuesday that the labor contract they won was worth the price. Figures released by the two companies, which negotiated the pact with Vons and Pavilions owner Safeway Inc., confirmed that the three together suffered at least $1.5 billion in forgone sales during the 4 1/2-month dispute.

California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer won't drop his antitrust suit against the three supermarket chains involved in the California labor dispute even if union members ratify a proposed contract and end the 20-week strike and lockout, his office said Friday. "We definitely intend to pursue the case," Lockyer spokesman Tom Dresslar said. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles over a mutual-aid pact that was entered into by Albertsons Inc., Ralphs parent Kroger Co. and Safeway Inc.

U.S. securities regulators sanctioned three former Ralphs grocery accounting executives for bookkeeping violations that caused Ralphs' parent, Kroger Co., to restate its earnings in 2001. The executives improperly placed the company's excess income in liability accounts instead of reporting it as income in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.

Talks aimed at ending the Central and Southern California supermarket strike and lockout, described as "intense" by the union, continued for a 10th straight day Friday, and one analyst said a settlement could be "only days away." Extending the longest streak of talks since the labor dispute began more than four months ago, negotiators for the United Food and Commercial Workers union and the three grocery chains involved continued meeting under the supervision of federal mediator Peter J.