Operating Earnings

Host Marriott Corp., the Bethesda-based lodging and food concessions company spun off by Marriott Corp. in 1993, reported yesterday that its first-quarter operating earnings increased 16 percent compared with the previous year as its full-service hotel properties turned in a strong performance.The company said its operating earnings -- also known as earnings before interest expense, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) -- rose to $78 million in the quarter that ended March 24, compared with $67 million during the same period of 1994.

Corporate America is poised to report its seventh consecutive quarter of profit growth, and perhaps the biggest year-over-year gain in earnings in nearly four years. But Wall Street's glee about fourth-quarter results is tempered somewhat by fears that earnings growth is peaking. Although it wasn't obvious then, the beginning of the 2000-2002 bear market coincided with the zenith of profit growth in the first quarter of 2000. This time around, many market professionals don't believe share prices are about to hit a wall.

*TC Giant Food Inc. continued to show signs of recovery yesterday as it registered a 19 percent gain in operating earnings over last year's lackluster first-quarter results.The Landover-based grocery chain said its earnings from continuing operations rose to $22.7 million in the 12 weeks that ended May 22, from $19.1 million during last year's comparable period.The company's net income jumped to $26.6 million, from $19.1 million during last year's first quarter, on sales of $813.5 million, up 1.3 percent.

As corporate America begins reporting third-quarter earnings in volume this week, hopes on Wall Street are high. And that may pose a challenge: To keep the stock market rallying, companies may have to not only beat profit growth estimates, but also offer reason to believe that 2004 results will be robust as well. Brokerage analysts expect companies in the blue-chip Standard & Poor's 500 index to post average earnings growth of 16.2 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, according to data tracker Thomson First Call in Boston.

Boosted by an increase in its life insurance and property and casualty businesses, USF&G Corp.'s operating earnings jumped 17.5 percent in the third quarter and 35.6 percent for the first nine months of the year, the company said yesterday.Operating earnings grew to $47 million, or 35 cents a share, for the quarter, and $131 million, or 99 cents a share, for the nine-month period."It was another good quarter for us in line with analyst expectations," said Dan Hale, the Baltimore-based insurer's chief financial officer.

USF&G Corp. reported yesterday that its operating earnings fell 12 percent in the second quarter, a result of the Baltimore-based insurer returning to tax reporting status this year.But analysts said a 23 percent boost in pretax operating earnings more accurately reflects the company's progress in improving its mix of property and casualty businesses and trimming costs by relying on technology in processing."The numbers were pretty much as expected, without any surprises positively or negatively," said Diana Wehrly, a vice president with Legg Mason Wood Walker Inc. in Baltimore.

USF&G Corp.'s operating earnings rose 7.6 percent in the first quarter as the Baltimore-based insurer was spared from natural disasters that raked insurers across the country last year.Operating earnings rose to $47.3 million, or 37 cents per primary share, in the quarter ended March 31, up from $43.9 million, or 33 cents per share, a year earlier."A lot of the improvement was Mother Nature being kinder to us than in 1996," said Dan L. Hale, chief financial officer. "We had fewer cat [catastrophic]

Prime Retail Inc. yesterday announced its operating earnings in the second quarter, before allocations to preferred shareholders and minority interests, rose nearly 50 percent to $10.6 million.The Baltimore-based real estate investment trust's 22 percent gain in funds from operations on a per share basis, to 33 cents per share for the period ended June 30, compared with 27 cents per share in 1996, occurred in part because the outlet center mall owner opened or acquired 1.8 million square feet of space in the past year, the company said.

Despite intense competition, USF&G Corp. saw its earnings from operations grow 20 percent in the second quarter, and its net income jumped 46 percent, the insurer said yesterday.The company earned $54 million from operations in the second quarter ended June 30, or 41 cents a share, compared with operating earnings of $45 million, or 34 cents a share, for the same period last year."Our business trends are very encouraging," said Norman P. Blake Jr., chairman and chief executive of the $14.6 billion-assets company, which is based in Baltimore.

USF&G Corp., a Baltimore-based insurance company, reported a nearly fivefold increase yesterday in first-quarter operating earnings over a year ago.Still, the company's stock price fell nearly 5 percent, partly because of doubts about future earnings and partly because of the advance work USF&G has done in the past few weeks in spreading the news about the positive quarterly results.For the three months that ended March 31, USF&G earned $61 million, or 58 cents a share, after paying preferred stock dividends.

The Rev. Lonnie J. Davis Sr. watched dozens of Seton Hill residents file inside a squat building in St. Mary's Park and hunker down in flimsy plastic chairs with full not-in-my-back-yard agitation: feet tapping, arms crossed, arguments prepared. Members of the Seton Hill Association, they came to voice opposition to a homeless shelter Davis operates at 700 N. Eutaw St., one they blamed for attracting crime and blight. "We are under an extra burden by that shelter. We need to get rid of it. That's it," said resident Tom Kravitz.

It's been a tough year for Constellation Energy Group Inc. The Baltimore energy company's stock price dropped more than 50 percent. It abandoned an ambitious plan to separate into two companies. Top-level executives have been replaced. Employees are being thinned out through voluntary early-retirement programs. And now, say analysts, an unseasonably warm fall is likely to inflict one more blow to the utility's already battered fourth quarter. "You could say it's just kind of an exclamation point on the year for Constellation," said David B. Burks, an energy analyst at J.J.B.

Sylvan Learning Systems Inc., the Baltimore education services company, boosted its operating earnings estimates for the year yesterday and said revenue and income from continuing operations increased during the second quarter. But losses from the company's investment arm, Sylvan Ventures, produced a net loss of $13.4 million, or 35 cents a share, for the three months that ended June 30. That number includes previously announced losses taken when Caliber Learning Network, one of Sylvan Ventures' investments, filed for bankruptcy protection last month.

In the Region Crestar Financial's parent says earnings increased 12% SunTrust Banks Inc., the country's ninth-largest bank and parent of Crestar Financial, said yesterday its first-quarter operating earnings rose 12 percent, to $328.3 million, or $1.07 a share. In the comparable period last year, the company earned $292.2 million, or 91 cents. Net income, including $8.9 million in charges taken for its takeover of Crestar Financial, rose to $319.4 million, or $1.04, from $281.7 million, or 87 cents, in the first quarter of 1999.

CareFirst BlueCross Blue-Shield experienced dramatic enrollment gains in the first quarter, but rising health care and prescription drug costs have held back profit-margin growth, the company said yesterday.Owings Mills-based CareFirst, which operates the Maryland and District of Columbia Blues plans, posted a $16.9 million operating profit for the first quarter, which ended March 31.That was up 22 percent from $13.9 million in the first quarter of 1998. Revenue in the quarter was $1.08 billion, up 14 percent from $946 million in last year's first quarter.

Prime Retail Inc. said yesterday that its operational earnings rose 22 percent in the first quarter of this year to 38 cents per share, an increase the company attributed to a June 1998 merger that doubled its size.The Baltimore-based real estate investment trust's total funds from operations -- a key gauge of an REIT's financial health -- amounted to $27.7 million, a gain of 79 percent from the corresponding period in 1998.The difference in the company's per share earnings and total funds from operations stems from the fact that Prime Retail has issued more than 31 million shares of its common stock since the first quarter of 1998.

The St. Paul Cos., the Minnesota insurer that bought USF&G Corp. earlier this year, said yesterday that core operating earnings fell 74 percent in the third quarter due to storm losses and weaker prices in its property and casualty business.The country's eighth-largest insurer said core operating earnings -- which do not include one-time charges or gains -- were $47.7 million in the quarter that ended Sept. 30, or 19 cents per diluted share, compared with $184.4 million, or 73 cents per diluted share, for the same period a year ago.Analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research expected the company to make 15 cents a share.

The Harrisburg, Pa.-based parent of the Basics grocery chain reported a 42 percent increase in after-tax operating earnings in its first fiscal quarter, which ended May 30, on the strength of higher sales in its wholesale business.During the period, the company posted a net loss of $5.8 million, or 65 cents per common share, compared with earnings of $321,000, or 5 cents per common share, the previous year. The net loss was largely the result of extraordinary charges related to the refinancing of debt, as well as a preferred stock dividend payout of $4.17 million.

The St. Paul Cos., the Minnesota insurer that bought USF&G Corp. earlier this year, said yesterday that core operating earnings fell 74 percent in the third quarter due to storm losses and weaker prices in its property and casualty business.The country's eighth-largest insurer said core operating earnings -- which do not include one-time charges or gains -- were $47.7 million in the quarter that ended Sept. 30, or 19 cents per diluted share, compared with $184.4 million, or 73 cents per diluted share, for the same period a year ago.Analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research expected the company to make 15 cents a share.

Prime Retail Inc. yesterday announced its operating earnings in the second quarter, before allocations to preferred shareholders and minority interests, rose nearly 50 percent to $10.6 million.The Baltimore-based real estate investment trust's 22 percent gain in funds from operations on a per share basis, to 33 cents per share for the period ended June 30, compared with 27 cents per share in 1996, occurred in part because the outlet center mall owner opened or acquired 1.8 million square feet of space in the past year, the company said.