Business news in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY “The weak data out of China is spooking a lot of investors.” Dan Greenhaus, BTIG chief global strategist Article, 1DEntrepreneur event offers mentoring

AARP Arkansas and the U.S. Small Business Administration will hold an “encore entrepreneur” event in Little Rock on Wednesday. The Starting a Business and One-to-One Counseling Drop-In event will be held at the SBA Arkansas District Office, 2120 Riverfront Drive, Suite 250 in Little Rock from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Business mentors from the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center and SBA will be available to answer questions. Registration is required and can be done by calling (501) 324-7379, according to a release.

Building on the joint AARP and SBA Mentor Day last October, the two organizations will match these “encore entrepreneurs” with successful business owners and community leaders for advice and assistance.

Throughout April, the AARP, the SBA and SBA Resource Partners will hold more than 150 events around the country, including 5-minute “speed mentoring” sessions, and mentor lunches for entrepreneurs to learn best practices from successful small-business owners, the release said.

Resources for people 50 or older are available at www.

aarp.org/statelessness and www.sba.gov/encore.

Health-care change is forum’s topic

The Arkansas Medical Dental Pharmaceutical Association Inc. and the National Medical Association Region V are hosting a conference on health-care change and health disparities on June 6-8. The conference will take place at the Little Rock Statehouse Convention Center. The theme of the conference is Thriving vs. Surviving in the New Healthcare Reform System: Practice, Policy, Research.

The conference brings together health-care providers, academicians, researchers and stakeholders to elaborate on current challenges and opportunities in the new health-care system.

There will be several mini-symposiums within the conference: health policy, stroke, obesity, asthma, women’s health and HIV. Information on registration and the conference is available by contacting the AMDPA office by phone at (501) 265-0156 or by e-mail at amdpa@sbcglobal.

net. The Arkansas Medical, Dental & Pharmaceutical Association is the largest minority health association in the state.

  • Jack WeatherlyMeeting set on Branson district upgrade

A meeting summarizing public comments so far on plans to renovate Branson’s Historic Downtown District will be held April 25.

The $5 million downtown revitalization plan is expected to be phased in over five years. The goal is to maintain the downtown’s atmosphere while polishing and refurbishing the area by improving sidewalks, parking, signs and reducing traffic congestion.

The Crawford Murphy & Tilley design team will host the meeting from noon to 2 p.m. at the downtown streetscape design studio at 210 S. Commercial St. The public will be able to comment on the preliminary concepts of the plan and will receive an update on the progress so far.

The city also hopes to repair water and sewer lines during the project.

Mississippi expects record corn planting

Mississippi farmers expect to have more than 1 million acres in corn this year and about 120,000 acres in rice - the largest corn acreage in 53 years and a 36-year low for rice.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture planting survey shows Mississippi farmers also plan to plant 1.95 million acres of soybeans and 270,000 acres of cotton this year.

The soybean acreage is changed little from last year’s 1.97 million acres, but farmers are planting 230,000 acres more of corn.

“That would be the first time we’ve been over 1 million acres since 1960,” said economist John Michael Riley of the Mississippi State University Agricultural Extension Service.

If the plans stand through the planting season, cotton acreage would be down 43 percent from last year and rice, though down only about 8 percent from last year, would be the lowest since 1977, Riley said.

Rice prices haven’t been extremely low, it’s just that other crops are paying better, he said.

Cotton acreage has fallen fairly steadily since 2007, when 1.2 million acres were planted in Mississippi.

Penney takes out $850 million in credit

NEW YORK - J.C. Penney Co. said Monday that it has drawn $850 million from its $1.85 billion revolving credit line, a sign that the department store chain is in a cash crunch.

The department store chain, based in Plano, Texas, said proceeds will be used to fund working capital requirements and expenditures including replenishing inventory for a newly overhauled home area. The new home area, which includes merchandise from names such as Jonathan Adler and Michael Graves, is being rolled out to 500 of its 1,100 stores by next month.

The latest development comes a week after Penney fired its Chief Executive Officer Ron Johnson after 17 months on the job.

  • The Associated Press

Homebuilder costs a worry, but optimism up

U.S. homebuilders are concerned that limited land and rising costs for building materials and labor will slow sales in the short term.

Still, their outlook for sales over the next six months climbed to the highest level in more than six years - suggesting the obstacles could be temporary.

The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index released Monday fell this month to 42 from 44 in March. It was the third decline since January. Measures of customer traffic and current sales conditions both declined from March’s reading.

Readings below 50 suggest negative sentiment about the housing market. The last time the index was at 50 or higher was in April 2006.

The recent declines come after the index had been trending higher since October 2011, when it was 17.

  • The Associated Press

Business, Pages 26 on 04/16/2013

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