NEWS IN BRIEF

— Raytheon picks site in Alabama for plant

Tucson, Ariz.-based Raytheon Missile Systems has chosen Huntsville, Ala., as the future home of a new $75 million missile factory.

Tucson, along with Camden in Ouachita County and Huntsville were finalists for the state of-the-art weapons facility.

Raytheon said the missile factory will provide final assembly and testing for a sea-based missile interceptor and an advanced ship-defense weapon.

Groundbreaking on the 70,000-square-foot facility is expected later this year.

Raytheon said Tucson was taken out of the mix because of time, schedule and costs.

Gerber to add 50 jobs at Fort Smith facility

The expansion of Nestle Nutrition’s Gerber baby-food plant in Fort Smith is expected to create about 50 full-time jobs, as well as employ local contractors during construction, Nestle said in a news release Tuesday.

A cereal manufacturing line will be added to the about 900,000-square-foot plant, with construction starting immediately and expected to be completed by September 2012. Further renovations will help improve operations and increase production capacity.

The plant employs more than 650 people and makes a variety of Gerber products.

The economy of Fort Smith and the surrounding region has depended heavily on manufacturing, and has been hard-hit in recent years as companies such as Whirlpool Corp., Trane Inc. and Rheem cut jobs.

In May, the latest month for which figures are available, unemployment in the Fort Smith Metropolitan Area rose to 7.8 percent from 7.6 percent the previous month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Arkansas Index dips as 15 stocks plunge

The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, fell 3.42 to 167.65 Wednesday.

“U.S. stocks shot lower in afternoon trading on Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke painted an uncertain future for the U.S.

economy in remarks to the Senate Banking Committee,” said John Blackwell, senior vice president and managing director of equity trading at Stephens Inc. in Little Rock.

The Arkansas Index moved lower as 15 stocks declined, one stock advanced and one stock remained unchanged, Blackwell added.

Volume was 31.2 million shares, compared with average volume of 27.9 million shares.

The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.

Business, Pages 25 on 07/22/2010

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