One bright spot was the performance of Kiribati Shipping Services Ltd., which signed an agreement to provide much-needed and profitable regular shipping services for its small neighbours, including Tuvalu, Nauru, and the French collectivity of Wallis and Futuna.
Russia has limited seaport capacity, and neither its ports nor those of former Soviet republics like Latvia can accommodate the immense tankers needed for profitable shipping across the Atlantic or the Pacific.
He said the national flag carrier needed to be strong and profitable in order to "create jobs and boost tourism, a key driver of Spain's recovery".
So we needed to be profitable to survive.
With the price of energy relatively low, what Vermont Yankee needed to be profitable was higher payments from customers for its capacity, Mr. Mohl said.
Consolidated had been underbidding its competitors, he said, but the company did not have the low-cost infrastructure needed to be profitable.
Creativity fuels entrepreneurship, and it's what you need to be sustainable and profitable.
Of course, Mr. Lenk acknowledges that it will take a big pile of popular items like toy safes before eToys, which had sales of $150 million last year, can reach the $750 million it needs to be profitable and guarantee its place among its bigger and stronger rivals.
But it badly needs profitable new work, and is looking urgently toward its old stomping ground in Iraq to find it.
G.M. executives have said that a public stock offering could happen this year but that the company would need to be profitable and meet other criteria first.
Mr. Antoniello said he wanted to "see how this goes, how much effort it needs, how profitable it is," before considering whether Complex Media would "go all in" for other marketers and take on similar branded content assignments.
