Business Highlights

WASHINGTON — Shutterfly Inc.’s pending initial public offering offers the company an opportunity to address some of the challenges it faces to remain one of the top online photography sites.

Those challenges include increasing competition and customers’ growing preference for a service Shutterfly doesn’t provide: picking up pictures they ordered online at their local retail store, which is faster than waiting for prints in the mail.

The Redwood City-based company filed on June 29 to raise up to $92 million in an initial public offering. In its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Shutterfly outlined a growth strategy based on expanding its services, increasing the size of orders from existing customers, reaching out to new customers and expanding internationally.

N.Y. Times will reduce size; earnings flat

NEW YORK — The New York Times Co. reported flat second-quarter earnings Tuesday and also said it plans to reduce the width of its flagship newspaper by an inch and a half and close one of its two New York-area printing plants.

Several other major newspapers already publish in the smaller size, including Gannett Co.’s USA Today, the largest-selling daily. Dow Jones & Co.’s Wall Street Journal plans to move to the smaller size early next year. Publishers say readers prefer the smaller size, which also saves money on newsprint.

Higher paper costs were one factor holding back the Times’ second quarter earnings, which came in at $61.3 million, or 42 cents per share, versus $60.8 million, also 42 cents per share, in the same period a year ago. In addition to the Times, the company also publishes The Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune and 15 other daily newspapers.

The latest figures include a charge of $5.3 million, or 4 cents per share, related to a staff reduction program announced last year. Excluding the charge, the results were ahead of the 44 cents per share that analysts polled by Thomson Financial had been expecting.

Schwab’s 2Q profit rises 35 percent, but misses analyst target

SAN FRANCISCO — Charles Schwab Corp.’s comeback continued to accelerate in the second quarter even though its profit narrowly missed analyst expectations — a shortfall that management attributed to investor uncertainty about the direction of interest rates.

The San Francisco-based company said Tuesday that it earned $251 million, or 19 cents per share, during the three months ended June 30. That represented a 35 percent increase from net income of $186 million, or 14 cents per share, at the same time last year.

Rambus down; award in Hynix trial could change

The volatile shares of memory-chip designer Rambus Inc. slid Tuesday, after a legal ruling that could change the amount Hynix Semiconductor Inc. is due to pay Rambus. Shares of the Los Altos-based company fell $2, or 9.3 percent, to close at $19.60 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Tuesday’s weakest level, on heavy volume, was $18.67. On a 52-week basis, there was a low of $10.22 on Sept. 2 and a high of $46.99 on April 19.<