KINGS OPERATING PROFIT RISES 16.8%

JAMES FALLON

WEST CALDWELL, N.J. (FNS) -- Kings Super Markets here said operating profit rose 16.8% to $12.2 million in the 53-week year ended March 31.

Sales at Kings, which operates 19 stores in northern New Jersey, rose 14.6% to $326.06 million in the fiscal year. Kings results were reported by its parent company, Marks & Spencer, London.

Kings had operating profit of $10.3 million and sales of $284.5 million in the previous fiscal year, which was a 52-week period.

Sir Richard Greenbury, chairman of Marks & Spencer, said Kings had done "tremendously well. Its profit level is terrific," given the difficult food retailing environment in the United States.

However, the retailer has delayed plans to open new stores in northern New Jersey, New York and Connecticut for at least 12 months.

Chris Littmoden, a Marks & Spencer director responsible for North America, said no new stores will open in the current fiscal year, which ends in March 1995. Openings should resume in fiscal 1996, he said.

"In a highly competitive market where no one is making any money, we intend to continue to do so," Littmoden said of Kings' revised store-opening program.

In the just-completed year, Kings' performance was helped by a strike at several of its major competitors in New Jersey, which enabled the chain to attract and keep new customers, Marks & Spencer said. The poor winter weather on the East Coast contributed to the gain because consumers were stocking up on food, Littmoden said.

Other initiatives included the introduction of a preferred customer program that offered discounts to regular customers and the acceptance of credit cards, Littmoden said.

Kings opened one new store last year, in Fort Lee, N.J. Marks & Spencer's U.K. food operations reported a 9.1% increase in sales to $3.49 billion (2.33 billion pounds at the current exchange rate of $1.50 per pound). Food sales the previous year totaled $3.21 billion.

Greenbury said Marks & Spencer managed to maintain its market share in an increasingly competitive U.K. market by focusing on quality and value in prepared and fresh foods.

The Marks & Spencer group had sales of $9.81 billion, a 9.9% increase compared with the previous year's total of $8.92 billion. After-tax profit rose 16.6% to $869 million from $745.5 million the previous year.