Tenet Posts Higher 3rd-Quarter Profit

Santa Barbara-based Tenet Healthcare Corp. said its fiscal third-quarter earnings rose 21%, partly because admissions to its hospitals increased. Tenet’s profit from operations rose to $118.3 million, or 39 cents a share, from net income of $98.1 million, or 33 cents, a year ago. Wall Street was expecting the nation’s second-biggest hospital chain to earn 38 cents a share. . . . Pleasanton-based Safeway Inc. reported first-quarter net income of $122.5 million, or 51 cents a share, up from $96.4 million, or 40 cents, in the year-earlier period. That barely beat expectations of per-share earnings of 50 cents. . . . Alameda-based Ascend Communications Inc.’s first-quarter earnings more than doubled, rising to $46.3 million, or 36 cents a share, from $19.4 million, or 15 cents, in the year-earlier period. . . . Sherman Oaks-based House of Fabrics Inc. reported its second consecutive quarter of profitability following its emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in August 1996. The company reported fourth-quarter net income of $405,000, or 8 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $45.8 million, or nil per-share earnings, a year ago.