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Show Up and Down the Street Leaner Grand Central Plans To Turn a Profit in 1983 By Robert H. Woody Tribune Business Editor Grand Central Inc , licking wounds of a $3 million loss in fiscal 1982, is now leaner and backed with new equipment and a new nian- Iagement team to - a bet- ter year, officers of the Salt Lake chain City-base- d of self-servic- e department stores told the annual meeting Mr. Woody Tuesday. And while the company expects a loss for the as yet untallied first quarter, it believes the Christmas quarter" will be profitable even though sales will be under last years season. Further, they said that while revenue probably will be down for the first half, the second half should be better than for the year-ag- o period. Grand Central previously reported a loss of $3.03 million, or a share, on sales of $255.88 million for the fiscal year ending August 1. That compares with net earnings of $1.17 million, or 54 cents a share, on sales of $236.1 million for the year before. Stock Market Donald A. Mackey, president, and Richard H. Chapin, senior vice $1-3- American Stores Reports Record Earnings, Sales American Stores Co., Salt Lake City, reported record earnings and sales gains for the quarter and half ending Oct. 30. Earnings for the quarter were up 63.44 percent over the year before to $15.7 million, or $1.32 a share, on a 3.13 percent gain in sales to $1.8 billion. Net earnings for the half were up 59.35 percent to $52.5 million, or $4.49 a share, on a 6.01 percent increase in sales to $5.5 billion. ' The American Stores Co. subsidiaries includes Acme Markets Inc., Alpha Beta Co., Rea & Derick Inc., and Skaggs Cos. Inc. These are involved in retail food, drug and drug-foo- d combination stores in 28 states. president, said the company had no explanation for the bnsk Grand Central trading on the American Stock Exchange and a price rise from 8 to 14 within two months time. At best, said Mr. Mackey, the activity seems to have been based unsubstantiated rumors upon that have circulated periodically about the companys circumst- ances. loss, he said, were and set the stage for better prospects m fiscal 1983. They include the cost of recruiting and building a new management team and installation of electronic equipment that will give assessthe company an ment of inventory, sales, trends and and advertisresults of mark-dowing promotion on an basis. Mr. Mackey did not specify the nature of the rumors. However, past queries by The Tribune have elicited hypothesized scenarios ranging from bankruptcy to merger with a major national chain. h Mr. Mackey said share trading volume has more than equaled Grand Centrals float and has principally involved street name transactions. Outstanding Stock "Float refers to the more than 1 million shares of Grand Centrals 2.25 million outstanding shares that can be actively traded. About half of the Grand Central shares are held by the family of the late Maurice Warshaw, its founder, or in trust, or by key executives and cannot readily enter the trading stream. Street names" refers to those institutional transactions made in behalf of unnamed stockholders, trusts, etc. A survey of transactions by individuals does not indicate any extraordinary activity, Mr. Mackey said. As for restoration of dividends, omitted last quarter, the likelihood is they will be omitted in the January quarter also, he said. Set the Stage Some of the factors of last years by Grand aggressive buying Centrals buyers in expectation of a good year in 1982 resulted in the company being heavily overburdened with inventory and carrying costs in a year that produced recession instead of recovery. That inventory has been pretty much worked off, he said, and should be in balance by the end of the Christmas buying season. Belt Tightening Internal belt tightening, he said, includes suspension of salary schedules for management, substitution of a participatory health insurance plan for employees for one in which all costs had been paid by the company, temporary suspension of discount buying privileges for employees, and omission during the last quarter of the companys usual contribution to the empplan. loyees Mr. Mackey said he expected early Christmas sales would be sluggish with a surge toward the end. He said that the public has money but is extremely cautious in view of the recession and widespread joblessness. He said that Grand Centrals intrinsic strength is eviident in the fact it remains in operation when many other chains across the nation have folded. two-mont- Market Blues Continue As Dow Tumbles Below the 1,000 Mark JM fake (Stfibttiu November 24, Section C 1982 Page 4 item-by-ite- m Mr. Chapin profit-sharin- noted that g TEN MOST WIDELY FOLLOWED STOCKS IN UTAH P.E. Sales Ashland Oil Gives Up On Synfuels - Ashland Oil LOUISVILLE, Ky. Inc. said it is withdrawing from a multi billion-dolla- r project to convert coal into oil in Breckinridge County, Ky. The company blamed the loss of tax benefits by a recent law revision, uncertainty of crude oil prices, and massive capital requirements. It was the second company in a month to withdraw from among the 11 projects. Standard Oil Company of Ohio previously announced it was dropping out of a partnership to build a coal-t- o gasoline plant at Gillette, Wyo. Two Utah projects remain in second-roun- d consideration. They Reare the GNC Energy-Chevro- n e, sources tar sands project at oil and the Paraho-Ut- e shale project 40 miles southeast of Vernal. -- Sun-nysid- Aid for Utah Firm Urged capable Jake an barrels has called Tribune Washington Bureau WASHINGTON Sen. for Gam, increase in federal funding for an oil shale research and development project by Geokinetics, a Utah-base- d firm. In a letter to Sen. James A. McClure, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, Sen. Gam asked the Idaho Republican to support Geokinetics, request for $2.8 million in federal hinds. The funds aid the firms research and development of a method of extracting oil from shale without mining the shale. The Energy Department cut Geokinetics request in half, then reduced it another 4 percent as part d of an spending cut. Sen. Gam maintained in his letter to Sen. McClure that the $2.8 million request was justified. Of oil shale projects supported to date by the Department of Energy, Geokinetics is the project which DOE itself thinks has the greatest potential for becoming a viable commercial operation, Sen. Gam wrote. The process the company uses is environmentally clean and, according across-the-boar- Suit Seeks to Curb Year of the Bible Wis. The the Freedom From Religion Foundation has filed suit in U.S. District court to stop President Reagan from declaring 1983 the Year of the Bible. MADISON, president of (AP) IPA Awards Grants For Project Work The Intermountain Power Agency has awarded grants for various projects within the Intermountain Power Project. They include $4,622,000 to Okland Construction Co. of Salt Lake City for intermoun- tain microwave communications facilities; $1,633,000 to McQuay-Perfe- x Inc. of Milwaukee for auxiliary cooling water heat exchan gers; Inc. $2,192,000 to Boveri Electric of Spring House, Pa., for generator circuit breakers; $13,828,000 to Westinghouse Electric Corp. of Pittsburgh for induced draft fan variable speed drives, and $743,000 to Rochester Instrument Systems Inc. of Rochester, N.Y., for annunciator equipment. NEW YORK (AP) The stock market suffered another broad loss in moderate trading Tuesday as the Dow Jones industrial average tumbled below 1,000 for the first time in nearly four weeks. Losers led gainers on the New York Stock Exchange from the opening bell and a late slide helped them close with a 1 lead. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, plummeting 21.25 points Monday, fell another 9.01 its lowest level points to 990.99 since it closed at that figure Oct. 28. The last time the average stood below 1,000 was a day later, when it closed at 991.72. Volume Down Big Board volume totaled 72.92 million shares, against 74.96 million in the previous session. Analysts said the market, having already discounted recent cuts in some key lending rates, found little incentive for a rebound Tuesday amid several negative economic reports. "There was an absence of any good news to lift prices, said Sally Hill, a trader with Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co. The 0.5 percent rise in consumer prices last month was well above Wall Street expectations, where the increase was forecast to be about 0.2 percent. Orders Fall Factory orders for durable goods in October fell 4.9 percent from September, while the gross weekly earnings of U.S. workers fell 0.5 percent last month, the government also said. The Market In Brief New York Stock Exchange Nov. 23, 1982 2-- n h, l - Wednesday Morning to the agency, is potentially of producing in excess of 26 billion of oil from shale in the southern portion of Utahs Uinta Basin alone. Funding for Geokinetics is part of an Energy Department authorize tion bill. Princeton Given $4 Million Gift - The PRINCETON, N.J. (AP) Forbes Foundation and three members of the magazine-publishin- g family have donated $4 million to Princeton University. The gift is from Malcolm S. Forbes, who graduated from Princeton in 1941, and his sons, Malcolm S. Forbes Jr., class of 1970, and Christopher C. Forbes, class of 1972. The senior Forbes is editor-in-chiof Forbes magazine and chairman of the board of Forbes Inc. ef University President William Bowen said the gift is the fourth $275 largest received in a five-yea- r, million fund drive. 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San Dial lae Cuy JO60 Easl 2100 South Phone 58 Weal 2nd South Phone Easl 70m South Phone 584 1730 2685 West 4700 South Phone South 9th East Phone 584 1790 2030 East 9400 South Phone Ogden 2486 Washington Bivd Phone Provo 206 University Ave Phone 0 2450 A.D.S-2.0.0.- 0 to place your WANT AD ! 5515 FMA Thrift mwECf 7T MCORE FINANCIAL CROUP i Chart With little evidence that the recession is over and a belief by many that the Federal Reserve will not cut its discount rate again in the near future, many investors remain anxious to cash in on the markets gains of the past three months, said Hildegarde Zagorski of Prudential-Bach- e Securities Inc. Exxon topped the NYSEs active to 28. A 500,000-shar- e list, falling block traded at 28. Texaco, second-moactive, fell to 29. A 500,000-shar- e block crossed at 29. oils Other losing ground included Getty 1 to 44 and Standard of California 1 to 28. President Reagan said he will press for an increase in the federal gasoline tax, but it was not immediately clear what effect such an increase would have on gasoline demand and the oil companies. Drug Issues Drug issues also took a drubbing, including Upjohn 3 to 43, Merck 1 to 80 and Pfizer 1 to 68. Dan River, fighting a hostile tender offer from investor Carl C. Icahn, fell to 17. On the upside, Bethlehem Steel to 17 and Republic Steel rose to 15. gained to 65 American Express rose after its board raised the quarterly dividend and approved a 3 stock split. The NYSE composite index fell 0.73 to 77.12. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was off 2.91 at 326.25. Nationwide turnover in NYSE-liste- d issues, including trades n those stocks on regional exchanges and in the market, totaled 85.82 million shares. Standard & Poors index of 400 industrials fell 1.45 to 147.89, and SAPs composite index was off 1.29 to 132.93. The NASDAQ composite index for the market closed at 225.17, down 0.62. A Thrift affiliate of Rate Pm Associated |