Briefcase

Kmart earnings improve

Kmart Holding Corp. earned $93 million in its second straight profitable quarter since emerging from bankruptcy protection, but the discount retailer continued to show a decline in same-store sales.

The company on Monday reported net income of 94 cents per share in the fiscal first quarter ended April 28. For the same period a year ago, while in bankruptcy and before its reorganization, its predecessor company lost $862 million, or $1.65 per share.

Kmart’s shares closed up $4.32, or more than 9 percent, at $48.62 in trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The retailer operates a distribution center in Lawrence.

Above, Jorell Lawrence, of Pontiac, Mich., looks over art supplies at the Kmart store in Troy, Mich.

Labor

Outsourcing figures rise

New figures on offshore outsourcing suggest that American companies are sending even more white-collar jobs to low-wage countries such as India, China and Russia than researchers originally estimated.

Roughly 830,000 U.S. service-sector jobs will move abroad by the end of 2005, according to a report released Monday by Forrester Research Inc. Forrester projected in 2002 that 588,000 jobs would move overseas by the end of next year.

Lead researcher John C. McCarthy said widespread publicity about the cost savings associated with offshoring might have hastened the trend.

“People were reading about offshoring at their breakfast table,” McCarthy said. “That made a lot of (chief information officers) who were unaware of the cost savings consider moving in that direction.”

Executives in the financial services and technology industries have embraced the trend. But the Forrester report says workers in the Midwest may become more at risk as manufacturers begin to outsource more work.

Retail

Big ticket spending boosts Lowe’s profits

Lowe’s Companies Inc. improved first-quarter earnings by 8 percent as the world’s second largest home improvement retailer said Monday that sales of big ticket items improved.

The company reported profits of $455 million, or 57 cents a share, up from $421 million, or 53 cents a share, during the same period last year.

Energy

State’s ethanol plants create new trade group

Kansas’ six ethanol plants have formed a new association to better promote the interests of the industry to the public and to policy-makers.

The Kansas Association of Ethanol Processors was unveiled on Monday. The group’s membership will include ethanol processing plants and other Kansas companies that provide goods and services to processing plants.

Topeka-based Midwest Management Solutions has been appointed as the association’s management group. Tom Tunnell has been elected to serve as the association’s president.