Sprint adds to board

Two new outside directors, one a utility CEO and the other a retailing executive, have been added to the board of Sprint Corp.

After the markets closed Monday, the Overland Park-based telecommunications company announced that E. Linn Draper Jr., chairman, president and chief executive of American Electric Power Co., and Gerald L. Storch, vice chairman of Target Corp., had joined the board, bringing the number of directors to nine.

Gary Forsee, who became Sprint’s chairman and chief executive earlier this year, has been working to expand the size of the board as part of an effort to improve corporate governance.

Telecommunications

SBC to slash work force

SBC Communications Inc. said Tuesday it would cut as many as 3,000 to 4,000 jobs, or up to 2.5 percent of its work force, in the fourth quarter as it cuts costs to offset shrinking revenues.

Faced with increasing competition and tepid demand for its core local telephone service, SBC has been trimming expenses and forging into newer markets such as long-distance and data services to find fresh sources of revenues.

The company has said it would slash its work force as the volume of telephone calls on its network continues to shrink. The job cuts will be made through early retirement incentives and attrition.

Retail

Kroger earnings fall

Kroger Co. and a grocery labor union have tentatively agreed to a contract, setting up a Thursday vote in which 3,300 workers in West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky will decide whether to end a two-month strike.

Labor troubles in those three states, as well as in California and Indiana, have hurt the supermarket giant, which reported Tuesday that third quarter earnings fell 57 percent, primarily because of the strike. Earnings fell from 33 cents per share a year ago to 15 cents per share in the latest quarter. The company attributed 12 cents of the decline to costs related to the strike.

Kroger operates four Dillons stores in Lawrence.