The retailer said its net loss shrank to 13 cents a share, from $44 million, or 22 cents, a year earlier.

And, as the company's losses are shrinking, its customer base is growing - to 1.3 million currently, from 448,000 customers in 2001.

Things have not gone well for 724 Solutions, although its losses have shrunk this year.

It will then be Mr. Purcell's job to make the losses shrink.

The relatively minor cross-border losses he had learned to endure would shrink to even more trivial levels.

As financial markets came back, the unrealized loss on its securities investment shrunk by $30.2 million.

But the loss shrank to 22,000 last year, after a surge in adult baptisms, as people without any previous Christian affiliation joined, a spokesman said.

When this is done, the losses shrink from $519 million to $232 million.

At the least, the unrealized losses that many investors are sitting on will shrink.

The airline said its losses would worsen in the second half of the year, rather than shrink, as it had once forecast.