Business news in brief

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

QUOTE OF THE DAY “The transportation industry has

morphed into a strike industry,

highly damaging our image.”Stefan Lauer, Lufthansa airline’s board member for personnel, on Monday’s strike by catering, freight and maintenance workers Article, 1DRates on Treasury bills fall at auction

WASHINGTON - Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills fell at Monday’s auction, with rates on six month bills dropping to their lowest point in more than a year.

The Treasury Department auctioned $32 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.050 percent, down from 0.055 percent last week. Another $28 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 0.085 percent, down from 0.090 percent last week.

The three-month rate was the lowest since three month bills averaged 0.040 percent on Dec. 17. The six month rate was the lowest since those bills averaged 0.075 percent on Jan. 30, 2012.

The discount rates reflect that the bills sell for less than face value. For a $10,000 bill, the three-month price was $9,998.73, while a six-month bill sold for $9,995.70. That would equal an annualized rate of 0.051 percent for the three-month bills and 0.086 percent for the six-month bills.

Separately, the Federal Reserve said Monday that the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for making changes in adjustable-rate mortgages, edged down to 0.11 percent last week from 0.12 percent the previous week.

SWEPCO urged to scrub scrubber plan

Southwestern Electric Power Co., which operates the 528-megawatt Flint Creek coal-fired plant in Northwest Arkansas, should pursue cheaper alternatives to reduce emissions, the Sierra Club said Monday.

SWEPCO has asked the Arkansas Public Service Commission to allow it to install $408 million scrubbers on the 35-year-old plant to meet federal environmental standards and control the emission of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and other hazardous air pollutants. With the scrubbers, the plant would continue to burn coal.

But SWEPCO should consider using cheaper sources of power such wind and solar energy and building new transmission lines to carry the power, the Sierra Club said. SWEPCO also should pursue an extension from the federal government beyond 2016 to implement the less expensive and more environmentally friendly alternatives, the Sierra Club said.

Building a transmission line to address reliability issues for Northwest Arkansas could take five to seven years, beyond the time the government requires new standards to be met, said Peter Main, a spokesman for SWEPCO.

Riggs Caterpillar building $7 million HQ

Riggs Caterpillar is building a $7 million headquarters at 9125 Interstate 30 in Little Rock, President and Chief Executive John Riggs said Monday.

The 24,000-square-foot building will replace the old headquarters building, which was built in the late 1950s, and demolished, Riggs said. Employees are working out of temporary offices.

Eighty-five people are employed at the headquarters, among roughly 200 in Little Rock. They are among about 400 working for Riggs around the state. The statewide dealer for Caterpillar, Riggs has eight other sales and service centers across Arkansas, he said.

The facility is expected to be completed in March.

Ex-state justice to join Friday law firm

Former Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Robert L.

Brown will join Friday, Eldredge & Clark, LLP next month, the law firm announced Monday.

Brown, who served as associate justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court, will begin working for the Little Rock based firm on May 1 and will practice law part-time, according to the news release.

Brown served on the state Supreme Court from 1991 to 2012. Before joining the court, he practiced law and served as deputy prosecuting attorney for the 6th Judicial District in 1977 and 1978.

Brown also worked as a legal aid to former Gov. Dale Bumpers from 1972 to 1974 and served as a legislative assistant from 1975 to 1977.

Legacy National Bank free of sanctions

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency terminated its sanction against Legacy National Bank of Springdale on March 21, the federal banking regulator said Friday.

Legacy National was sanctioned on April 24, 2008, meaning it had been under federal sanctions longer than any other bank in Arkansas.

At the time, Legacy was cited for nine specific concerns, including “criticized assets” that exceed $500,000, monitoring early loan problems, reporting monthly to the bank’s board of directors on problem loans and leases, delinquent loans and leases and reducing “the high level of credit risk in the bank.”

The regulator said on March 21 that Legacy is doing well enough that it no longer needs to be subject to the sanctions.

Shares of Google Inc. dropped as much as 3.1 percent and then reversed most of the tumble within a second in a series of transactions Monday morning that spurred concern the stock was hit by a computerized-trading error.

Google slid as low as $775 in two trades totaling 210 shares at 8:37 a.m. and rebounded to as high as $786 within one second, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The stock had opened the session with a gain, climbing to as high as $803.96. The shares closed Monday at $800.11, up 24 cents.

Google slid from $796 to $775 in about three-quarters of a second, then rebounded to $793 a second later, according to a report from Nanex LLC, a market-data firm that analyzes high- frequency trading. The drop involved 307 trades and 57,255 shares, Nanex said. During the drop, there were five orders placed and then canceled for every trade executed, the firm said.

“I think that it may have been a fat finger,” Larry Peruzzi, senior equity trader at Cabrera Capital Markets LLC in Boston. “Funny how two years ago this would have been a big issue. Now the market has almost become complacent of these errors.”

Business, Pages 24 on 04/23/2013