LITTLE ROCK — Investment firm buys DeWitt weekly
The DeWitt Era-Enterprise has been sold to Kingsbury Partners and Amagansett Investments, a Chicago-based investment company, for an undisclosed amount. The sale was announced Sunday.
The weekly newspaper, which was owned by C.F. Scott and Christina Verderosa for 16 years, has an circulation of 2,700, serving DeWitt and parts of Arkansas County.
The deal was finalized Dec. 27, said Ted Rickenbacher, president of Rickenbacher Media, a Texas-based acquisition firm that represented Scott and Verderosa.
Scott and Verderosa sold the newspaper because they planned to retire.
The DeWitt Era-Enterprise will be run by Valenya Franks, a reporter and editor; Dawn Deane, an advertising sales manager; and Haley Watkins, the office manager and ad designer, according to the newspaper’s website.
- Jessica Seaman
Harps buys 3 stores; 2 more being built
Harps Food Stores of Springdale said Monday it has bought the Big Star stores in Morrilton and Mayflower and Bob’s Market in Jasper, boosting the grocery chain’s store count to 50 Harps and Price Cutter locations in Arkansas and two other states.
Two additional stores are under construction in West Fork and Bentonville, with openings scheduled for February and March.
Harps also has eight stores in Missouri and nine in Oklahoma.
With more than 3,500 workers, Harps is the largest employee-owned company headquartered in Arkansas.
- Steve Painter
Arkansas Index falls with only 1 stock up
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, fell 2.88 to 250.26 Monday.
“Markets ended the session lower, albeit off their worst levels, with the major averages posting modest declines after investors took profits following last week’s strong rally,” said Bob Williams, senior vice president and managing director of Delta Trust Investments Inc. in Little Rock. “Despite mostly low trading volumes, Arkansas equities underperformed relative to the broad market indicators with declining issues dominating advancing stocks by a 15 to 1 margin.”
Windstream showed the only positive return, gaining 3.8 percent on heavy volume, Williams said.
Arkansas Best, First Federal Bancshares of Arkansas and America’s Car-Mart saw their share prices recede by over 2 percent each, Williams said.
Volume was 25.9 million shares, compared with average daily volume of 24.6 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 21 on 01/08/2013