FEBRUARY 24, 2011, 10:19 A.M. ET.

Target's Profit Rises 11%


By NATHAN BECKER

Target Corp. reported an 11% rise in fourth-quarter earnings as the retail giant's revenue improved and it continued to see sharply lower bad-debt expense at its credit-card arm.

"We're very pleased with our fourth quarter and full-year 2010 financial results, which reflect strong performance in both of our business segments," said Chairman and Chief Executive Gregg Steinhafel.

Family Dollar Margins Pressured Access thousands of business sources not available on the free web. Learn More Target's retail segment has performed better recently, helped by better traffic, while its credit-card business has reduced its bad-debt expenses.

For the quarter ended Jan. 29, Target reported a profit of $1.04 billion, or $1.45 a share, up from $936 million, or $1.24 a share, a year earlier. The most recent quarter included tax benefit of seven cents a share. Revenue rose 2.4% to $20.66 billion, with sales at stores open at least a year increasing by the same margin.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had most recently forecast earnings of $1.40 a share on $20.76 billion in revenue.

Gross margin at the company's retail segment fell to 28.7% from 29.1%.

Bad-debt expenses at the company's credit-card segment fell to $83 million from $284 million a year earlier, while revenue slid 17%. Profit increased to $151 million from $39 million. Accounts at least 60 days delinquent fell to 4.2% from 6.3%, while the 90-day delinquency rate declined to 3.1% from 4.7%.

Write to Nathan Becker at nathan.becker@dowjones.com

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