Borders Group Inc.'s (BGP) fiscal first-quarter loss widened amid $70.1 million in charges, as revenue fell amid declining same-store sales.

However, earnings excluding the charges topped Wall Street expectations, sending shares up 11% to $2.85 in after-hours trading.

Booksellers have been hurt by the slowdown in consumer spending, while online competition has cut into sales from brick-and-mortar bookstores. Borders has cut its inventory and capital expenditures on its expectation that sales will fall throughout 2009.

For the quarter ended May 2, the second-largest U.S. bookstore chain reported a loss of $86 million, or $1.44 a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $30.1 million, or 53 cents a share.

The latest quarter included $1.17 a share in nonoperating charges, most of them noncash. Excluding items, the loss narrowed to 27 cents from 51 cents a share, better than the loss of 50 cents projected by a Thomson Reuters analyst poll.

Revenue dropped 12% to $641.5 million.

Consolidated gross margin on an operating basis fell to 22.2% from 23.3%.

Same-store sales at U.S. Borders superstores decreased 14%, while the figure fell 5.5% at the mall-based Waldenbooks segment, which the company has been shrinking.

Sales in the international segment dropped 15%, but would have been up 9.5% excluding the effects of the stronger dollar.

Last week, larger rival Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS) posted a wider fiscal first-quarter loss amid weak store traffic, but the bookseller boosted its fiscal-year outlook, crediting its cost-cutting efforts.

The company's stock has lost two-thirds of its value from September, but has rebounded from its all-time low of 34 cents in December. Last month, Borders said it wouldn't seek a reverse stock split, which it had been considering to maintain its listing on the New York Stock Exchange, after the stock rose above $1 for the first time in four months.

   -By John Kell, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5285; john.kell@dowjones.com