SUPERVALU Q1 Net Earnings Up - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Grocery retailer Supervalu, Inc. (SVU) posted higher first-quarter net earnings of $85 million, or $0.34 a share, compared with $41 million, or $0.19 a share, a year earlier. On average, 10 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings per share of $0.06 for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude one-time items.

Including $139 million in after-tax charges, or $0.57 a share, mainly related to current and previous financing activities, employee severance, and asset impairments, three-month loss from continuing operations widened significantly to $105 million, or $0.43 a share, from a loss of $18 million, or $0.08 per share, last year. When adjusted for these charges, first-quarter fiscal 2014 net earnings from continuing operations totaled $34 million, or $0.14 a share.

Net income from discontinued operations in the first quarter, which amounted to $190 million or $0.77 a share, included the benefits from the finalization of tax related matters and a favorable adjustment to the previously recorded loss on sale of five retail grocery banners in the first quarter, Supervalu noted.

Quarterly net sales reached $5.16 billion, compared with $5.24 billion last year, down by 1.5 percent, chiefly reflecting a drop in identical store sales of negative 3.0 percent for Retail Food and negative 1.9 percent for Save-A-Lot. Identical store sales for corporately operated stores within the Save-A-Lot network were negative 1.2 percent. Analysts estimated revenues of $5.17 billion for the quarter.