ON THE MONEY

Rite Aid shares take wrong turn

Shares of Rite Aid dropped 4% after the drugstore chain said earnings for the fiscal year would be lower than an earlier forecast, reflecting the results of an acquisition.

The shares fell 34 cents to $8.59 after the operator of more than 4,500 stores said adjusted earnings in fiscal 2016, which ends in February, will be 14 to 22 cents a share. That compared with an earlier forecast of 19 to 27 cents that left out the purchase of pharmacy-benefit manager EnvisionRX.

Kroger quarterly profit rises near 24%

Kroger, the biggest U.S. supermarket operator, reported a 23.5% rise in quarterly profit, helped by a fall in operating expenses.

The quarter’s results were helped by Kroger’s focus on running its stores more cheaply. Operating expenses as a portion of sales were 15 basis points lower than a year earlier.

The Cincinnati-based company has reduced costs by that measure for 10 straight years.

Amazon reaches book deal with Penguin

Amazon.com has signed a digital and print book deal with Penguin Random House, the last of the five biggest publishers to reach an agreement with the Web retailer following a dispute last year over e-book sales.

The contract is for sales in the U.S. and Britain. Terms were not disclosed.

Amazon had been locked in a dispute with publishers including Harper Collins and Simon & Schuster over the price of digital books and shared revenue. Amazon has sought discounts, arguing that lower prices boost sale volumes and result in more total income.

A&P mulls another bankruptcy filing

Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., known as A&P, is considering a bankruptcy filing among possible options as the 156-year-old grocer works to cut costs, according to sources.

A filing, which would be the chain’s second in five years, could come as soon as next month, said the sources.

Hudson’s Bay buying German retailer

Hudson’s Bay agreed to buy Metro AG’s Galeria Kaufhof stores for $3.2 billion, putting the German retailer under the same ownership as Saks Fifth Avenue.

Canada’s oldest company fended off competition for the 136-year-old chain.

For Hudson’s Bay, the deal marks another step in the rapid expansion of a company that began operations as a fur-trading outpost in 1670 and acquired Saks in 2013.