(Reuters) - Supervalu Inc (>> SUPERVALU INC.)'s quarterly profit beat Wall Street estimates as the supermarket operator cut costs after selling more than half of its stores earlier this year.
The company's shares rose 6 percent in premarket trading after the company reported net income of $40 million, or 15 cents per share, in the quarter ended September 7. It lost $111 million, or 52 cents per share, in the same quarter last year.
Excluding items, the company earned 13 cents per share.
Analysts on average had forecast a profit of 11 cents per share on revenue of $3.88 billion, according to Thomson Reuters
I/B/E/S.
Overall sales rose 0.2 percent to $3.95 billion, even after it sold nearly 900 supermarket to reduce debt and cut costs.
Supervalu has been losing customers to larger rivals such as Kroger (>> The Kroger Co.) and Wal-Mart Stores Inc (>> Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.), which sells more groceries than any other U.S. retailer.
Selling and administrative expenses fell 14 percent to $465 million in the second quarter, largely due to operating a much smaller company.
Its interest bill fell by a third, thanks to lower interest rates and paying off debt after the $3.3 billion asset sale earlier in the year.
Supervalu's operating margin was 2.8 percent, compared with minus 0.3 percent a year earlier.
Supervalu shares closed at $8.40 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Chris Peters and Devika Krishna Kumar; Editing by Maju Samuel and Rodney Joyce)