Both sales and profits must climb if the company is to stay on course for success.

Sales increased to $2.6 billion while profit climbed to $444 million.

For all of 1995, profit climbed 6.4 percent, to $189.6 million.

Meanwhile, profit climbed to $5.2 million, from $800,000 a year earlier.

Profits from the company's spirits division climbed 24 percent, to $:542 million, in 1989.

Corporate profits have climbed much faster than expected over the last two quarters.

Sales and profits at the stores had been climbing steadily for nearly a decade.

But company executives and analysts predict that profits will climb even more quickly over the next year or two.

Prices fell almost every year, but wages and profits, instead of being squeezed out, climbed.

Sales were up 25 percent for the year, and profits climbed 13.7 percent, it reported last week.