TWO INVESTORS BUY 6% OF KMART STOCK.(Ronald Burkle and Kenneth Abdalla)(Brief Article)

NEW YORK -- Two Los Angeles area investors have purchased 6 percent of Kmart Corp.'s common stock.

Having made purchases as early as last October and as recently as last Friday, Ronald Burkle and Kenneth Abdalla have acquired more than 29 million shares of Kmart stock, according to a 13-D filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As individuals and through affiliated firms including Burkle's Yucaipa Cos. and Abdalla's American Cos., since mid-November the two have acquired about 12.8 million Kmart shares at prices ranging from $4.97 to $6.54 a share. The total investment in the last 60 days is just under $80 million.

In a separate development, BlueLight.com, Kmart's e-commerce unit, said it is ending its free unlimited Internet access to all subscribers and replacing it with tiers of access comprising free and paid service. In the next 30 days or so, BlueLight will determine how many hours non-paying subscribers can stay online and how much the paid service will cost.

BlueLight on Dec. 22 began limiting its subscribers to no more than 25 hours of free Net access a month, barring the busiest surfers from hanging on the ...