Krispy Kreme profits up

Krispy Kreme Inc. reported a sharp surge in fourth-quarter profits Wednesday, helped by strong sales at company-owned stores.

For the three months ending Feb. 1, the doughnut maker earned $16.4 million, or 26 cents a share — in line with the consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call. A year ago, the company earned $5.6 million, or 9 cents a share, including a $5.7 million charge related to an arbitration award against the company. Excluding the charge, the company earned $11.3 million, or about 19 cents a share.

In the fourth quarter, Krispy Kreme opened 35 new stores, including its first store in Mexico, located in Interlomas, a suburb of Mexico City. Krispy Kreme expects to open about 120 new stores in the coming year.

Above, Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts were pictured Feb. 17 in a Little Rock, Ark., store.

Automakers

Toyota agrees to share technology with Ford

Toyota is granting U.S. carmaker Ford a license to use the Japanese company’s patented technology for environmentally-friendly hybrid cars for an undisclosed sum.

Hybrid cars have both a gas engine and an electric motor and can switch between the two to save gas and avoid pollution.

The technology will be used as part of a project Ford has to make a hybrid version of its Escape sport-utility vehicle. The Escape is manufactured at Ford’s Claycomo, Mo., plant.

Government

Former Bell firms, rivals urged to negotiate fees

The head of the Federal Communications Commission called Wednesday on the former Bell telephone companies to negotiate with their competitors for the use of their local telephone lines.

Chairman Michael Powell’s suggestion came a week after a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down rules designed to foster competition for local telephone service. The judges said the FCC acted improperly by leaving it to state regulators to decide whether to spur competition between the former Bell companies — Verizon, BellSouth, Qwest and SBC — and others wanting to provide local phone service.

Powell said the companies should spend the next 30 days trying to negotiate fees and conditions for allowing competitors to use their wires and switches in the next 30 days, and that state utility regulators should encourage the talks.

Agriculture

Beef, poultry exports fall

Projections of U.S. beef production for the year are down following the discovery of the nation’s first case of mad cow disease, while bird flu is reducing U.S. poultry exports, the Agriculture Department said Wednesday.

The nation will produce about 25.3 billion pounds of beef this year, the department said. The March projection is 204 million pounds below the February estimate of the year’s beef production.

Although the beef production estimate had fallen, USDA said demand for beef was firm, helping to support prices that were predicted to remain in the range of $74 to $79 per 100 pounds of meat.