SuperTarget stays open through outage

A power outage struck SuperTarget soon after the store opened Tuesday morning, sending workers scrambling to preserve perishable food items and keep cash registers running.

And it still cut sales in half, said Brett Schubert, store team leader.

“We’re making the best of it,” Schubert said Tuesday evening, in the glow of portable lights trucked in to keep the parking lot illuminated at 3201 Iowa St. “It looks like we have a grand opening sale going on.”

Westar Energy officials say the outage was caused by blown fuses in the line feeding the store. Schubert said the store would continue to run on a generator until the power returns, likely sometime this afternoon.

Until then, it’s “business as close to usual” as possible, he said: Capitol Federal Savings remains open, and SuperTarget continues to sell everything but its perishable food items, now stored in freezer and refrigerated trucks on site.

Starbucks, however, remains closed — much to Schubert’s disappointment.

“I could use a cappuccino right now,” he said.

Retail

Circuit City receives cash buyout offer

Circuit City Stores Inc., which has lost market share to Best Buy Co. Inc. and continues to report disappointing sales, received a $3.25 billion cash buyout offer from a Boston investment firm known for rattling management at underperforming companies.

The nation’s No. 2 chain of consumer electronics stores said Tuesday that its board of directors would “carefully evaluate” the unsolicited offer from shareholder Highfields Capital Management LP, which contended that it had a plan for reversing Circuit City’s fortunes.

Also Tuesday, Circuit City announced that Philip J. Schoonover, who spent about a decade at Best Buy before joining Circuit City last fall as chief merchandising officer, had been named president of the company.

Benefits

Sprint expands use of corporate jets

Sprint Corp. will allow more corporate executives to use the company’s two jets for personal trips, the telecommunications company said in a filing this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Sprint’s compensation committee has extended the perquisite to seven officials who are executive vice president level or higher, according to the filing.

Previously, only the chief executive officer could use the planes for personal use. In fact, company policy prohibits the company’s CEO from using commercial aircraft.

Each executive is limited to $75,000 each in travel, and the seven executives can’t use more than $150,000 in travel. The flights will be treated as income for tax purposes.