Retail giants’ profits up

Retail heavyweights Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. beat Wall Street expectations with double-digit profit gains for the first quarter as strong sales earlier in the year more than offset a shopping slump last month. Their earnings were released Thursday.

Wal-Mart posted quarterly earnings of 50 cents per share, up from 41 cents during the same period a year ago. Target’s posted profits of 48 cents per share, up from 38 cents per share a year ago.

Above, a Wal-Mart sign stands in front of the company’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark.

Pharmaceuticals

Pfizer to pay $430M to settle fraud charges

Pfizer Inc. agreed Thursday to pay $430 million in fines and plead guilty to charges that a company it acquired four years ago promoted a drug for nonapproved uses, in part by plying doctors with favors to get them to talk up the medication.

The settlement with the world’s largest pharmaceutical company includes a $240 million criminal fine — the second-largest ever imposed in a health care fraud prosecution, according to the Justice Department.

Warner-Lambert acknowledged spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote the anti-seizure medication Neurontin — approved only as an epilepsy drug — for relieving pain, headaches and psychiatric illnesses such as manic depression.

Court

Former Rite Aid CEO reaches new plea deal

Former Rite Aid CEO Martin L. Grass reached a new plea agreement Thursday for his role in a billion-dollar accounting fraud, three weeks after a judge rejected an earlier deal as too lenient.

The new agreement calls for Grass, 50, to serve up to 10 years in prison for conspiring to defraud and obstruct justice. He pleaded guilty to the charges days before his trial was to start last June.

Grass, the son of Rite Aid’s founder, resigned in 1999. He has admitted to illegal activities including hiding a $2.6 million real-estate deal from the company and federal regulators.

Topeka

Payless ShoeSource earnings beat estimates

Discount shoe retailer Payless ShoeSource Inc. said earnings fell in the latest quarter due to increased advertising spending to support a new customer service and sales strategy.

The Topeka-based company Thursday reported earnings for the quarter ended May 1 were $13.8 million, or 20 cents a share, on revenue of $722 million. That compares with earnings of $14.1 million, or 21 cents per share, on sales of $697.7 million in the first quarter of last year.

Earnings for the latest quarter beat Wall Street’s expectations by 1 cent, according to Thomson First Call.

Same-store sales, or sales at stores open more than one year, increased 2.8 percent for the latest quarter.