Kroger earnings fall for quarter, fiscal year

Kroger Co., the operator of Lawrence’s Dillons, said Tuesday that labor unrest, including a 4 1/2 monthlong strike in southern California, contributed to a loss of $337.4 million in the fourth quarter.

For the three months ending Jan. 31, the company lost 45 cents per share. A year earlier, earnings were $381 million, or 50 cents per share.

The labor disputes, settled less than two weeks ago, reduced Kroger’s earnings by $156.4 million after taxes. For all of fiscal 2003, earnings were $314.6 million, or 42 cents per share, compared with $1.2 billion, or $1.52 per share, a year earlier. Sales increased 4 percent to $53.8 billion.

Kroger said it expected earnings in 2004 to be lower than in 2003, excluding the effect of the strikes and other expenses. David B. Dillon, chief executive officer, said Kroger cannot be more precise about earnings expectations.

Government

Fed OKs bank merger

The Federal Reserve has cleared the way for Bank of America and FleetBoston Financial Corp. to combine and form a banking titan with nearly $1 trillion in assets, stretching from California through the South and up to New England. It will be the nation’s third-largest bank.

The Fed’s board of governors, including Chairman Alan Greenspan, voted 6-0 Monday to approve the merger, finding that Bank of America’s acquisition of New England’s largest bank would not threaten competition or unduly concentrate banking resources.

Aviation

Report clears Boeing

Independent investigators commissioned by Boeing Co. during a defense contract scandal said Tuesday they found no further wrongdoing but concluded that the company often ignored its own ethics policies on hiring government officials.

The examiners, led by former U.S. Sen. Warren Rudman, issued a report recommending changes to address what they called gaps in Boeing’s procedures and more safeguards and oversight to prevent hirings such as that of Air Force contracting official Darleen Druyun last year.

Druyun was fired in November along with Boeing chief financial officer Mike Sears, who allegedly negotiated to hire her in 2002 at a time when she was a key Pentagon official reviewing a proposal for a multibillion-dollar air tanker-leasing contract between Boeing and the Air Force.

The more important investigations into circumstances surrounding the tanker contract are being carried out by Pentagon examiners at the behest of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Those probes, the results of which aren’t expected before May, will determine the fate of the tanker deal. Much of the tanker work would be done at Boeing’s Wichita plant.

Technology

CyDex announces deal

Lenexa-based CyDex Inc. announced Tuesday that it had signed a deal to allow Colorado-based Array BioPharma to use CyDex technology in the development of new pharmaceuticals.

CyDex uses technology that was developed by Kansas University scientists at the Higuchi Biosciences Center. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.