Correction: Cobb-Vantress Inc. of Siloam Springs has taken an 85 percent share of a joint venture agreement with Chinese chicken producer Hubei Tong Xing Agriculture Ltd. The nature of Cobb Vantress’ investment was mischaracterized in a brief below.
Poultry firm invests in Chinese hatchery
Cobb-Vantress Inc. of Siloam Springs, a subsidiary of Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale, said Tuesday that it has signed a joint venture agreement to take a majority shareholder position in China-based chicken producer Hubei Tong Xing Agriculture Co. Ltd.
Cobb-Vantress said in a news release that the move makes the company the first American primary broiler-breeding firm to take a majority position in a Chinese firm for the production and sale of parent stock.
Under the agreement, $35 million will be invested in the farm and hatchery in the city of Suizhou in Hubei province, west of Shanghai, to start producing parent stock early in 2015.
The joint-venture company will be called Hubei Tong Xing Cobb Breeding Co. It will be 85 percent owned by Cobb and 15 percent by Tong Xing. The company has set an initial production target of 5 million parent birds a year.
- Steve Painter
Acxiom’s LR park now open to public
Acxiom Corp. has opened the park adjacent to its headquarters in downtown Little Rock to the public, said Wyatt Jefferies, spokesman for the Little Rock-based company.
“As a part of Acxiom’s commitment to the communities in which we live and operate, and as a gesture of goodwill for all the city of Little Rock has done for Acxiom, we are opening up the park next to our River Market building to the public during normal business hours,” he said in an email Tuesday.
Jefferies said the company has not settled on the exact hours the park will be open, but Acxiom’s normal business hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. He said the park is opening on a trial basis and that the open hours may change.
Jefferies said the park will be closed at night, on weekends and during company events.
- Jessica Seaman
Car-Mart rises 1.6% to boost index 1.01
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, rose 1.01 to 289.09 on Tuesday.
“The major indexes were mixed as investors processed the day’s economic and corporate profit releases before turning their attention to the Fed’s upcoming two-day policy meeting,” said Bob Williams, senior vice president and managing director of Delta Trust Investments Inc. in Little Rock.
At the extremes, America’s Car-Mart gained 1.6 percent in light trading, while Arkansas Best lost 3 percent, Williams said.
Volume for the index was 21 million shares, compared with average daily volume of 18.2 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 07/31/2013