Supervalu Inc., New York symbol SVU operates 2,394 company-owned and franchised supermarkets. The Wall Street stock’s major banners include Save-A-Lot, Albertsons and Jewel-Osco. Supervalu gets 77% of its revenue from its retail stores. It gets the remaining 23% by supplying food to 1,900 independent grocery stores.

The company continues to focus on its core business of food retailing, and has stopped selling other items, such as automotive goods and perfumes, in its stores.

In its fiscal 2011 ended February 26, 2011, the Wall Street stock’s sales fell 7.5%, to $37.5 billion from $40.6 billion in fiscal 2010. Same-store sales fell 6.0%. The company closed underperforming stores, and was forced to cut its prices due to stronger competition from discount retailers, including Wal-Mart, which is selling more groceries in its stores.

The company lost $1.5 billion, or $7.13 a share, in fiscal 2011, compared to earnings of $393 million, or $1.85 a share in fiscal 2010.

If you exclude store closure costs and other unusual items, earnings per share would have fallen by 31.5%, to $1.39 from $2.03. On this basis, the 2011 earnings beat the consensus estimate of $1.29 a share.

The company paid down $885 million of its total debt last year. Its remaining long-term debt of $6.3 billion is a high 3.3 times its $1.9-billion market cap.

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