QUOTE OF THE DAY “March will give us a sense of how real the recovery is going to be this year.” Alec Gutierrez, Kelley Blue Book senior analyst, on U.S. auto sales.
Article, 1D
Graziers conference features producers
Pasture management techniques that can improve soil quality and profitability are a topic of the 2014 Arkansas Grazing Lands Conference on March 14 in Russellville.
“This conference is about how good pasture management practices can affect soil and water conservation which has a direct impact on profitability,” coalition board member Paul Casey said in a news release. “Every speaker on the agenda is a producer, so they bring their experiences grazing beef cattle, dairy cattle, sheep and goats.”
Conference speakers include Oklahoma rancher and consultant Walt Davis, as well as grazier Yates Adcock of Oklahoma, U.S. Agriculture Department Natural Resource Conservation Service grazing lands/soil health specialist Greg Brann, and Missouri graziers Mark Brownlee and Bob Salmon. Salmon was featured in the November 2013 edition of Beef Producer.
Registration for the event is $40. More information about the conference, which will be at the Lake Point Conference Center, is available by calling (501) 682-2915 or at the coalition’s website, www.argrazinglandscoalition. org.
State Farm Bureau reports promotions
The Arkansas Farm Bureau has named Stanley Hill as its vice president of public policy, one of several promotions announced by Rodney Baker, executive vice president of the state’s largest agricultural advocacy group.
Hill, an Arkadelphia native who has worked for the Farm Bureau for 20 years, most recently worked as its associate director of governmental affairs. He graduated from the University of Arkansas and also worked for Worthern Bank and First Commercial Bank.
The Farm Bureau also announced two new directors within the organization: Leigh Pruss in finance and operations and Chris Wilson in public relations. Pruss is a Little Rock native and a certified public accountant who worked for Thomas & Thomas LLP before joining the Farm Bureau. Wilson, a former design editor at the Northwest Arkansas Times, edited the Farm Bureau’s consolidated news feeds and led the bureau’s creative design efforts, social media presence and print shop.
Other new assignments include Beau Bishop, who will lead the organization’s national affairs efforts and be the bureau’s liaison with Arkansas’ congressional delegation; MaLeta Stephens, a 35-year Farm Bureau employee, has assumed the duties of corporate events specialist; and Ethan Branscum of Marshall, a University of Arkansas graduate student, has been hired as assistant director of commodity activities and economics.
- Glen Chase
Madoff trial tape: Fraud ‘impossible’
Jurors in the trial of five former Bernard Madoff employees were shown video clips of the con man telling participants at a conference in 2007 that fraud on Wall Street was “virtually impossible.”
The clips, played Monday in federal court in Manhattan, are intended to show the jury Madoff’s skills as a liar and back the defense claim that Madoff had the ability to dupe his former inner circle into aiding his $17.5 billion Ponzi scheme. Prosecutors had sought to keep the jury from seeing the clips.
The criminal trial, now in its fifth month, is the first stemming from the scheme, which collapsed after Madoff’s arrest in December 2008.
In the first clip, shown by Eric Breslin, a lawyer for Joann Crupi, who managed large accounts in the investment advisory business, Madoff compares regulators to children who “roll their eyes” when being told what they need to do.
In the second clip, Madoff says that in the current regulatory environment, fraud on Wall Street is “virtually impossible.”
Madoff says in the third video clip that regulatory problems can potentially be solved if you “take the human being out of the equation,” though he said later that computers could also be manipulated.
The video was made in October 2007 in New York at the Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination, a now-defunct organization that arranged public discussions and exhibits on a variety of topics, including finance.
Southwest adding flights to Mexico
DALLAS - Southwest is adding more surf-and-sun spots to its international route map with flights to Cancun and Los Cabos in Mexico.
The airline said Monday that beginning Aug. 10, it will fly daily nonstops between Cancun and Atlanta and Baltimore and between Los Cabos and Santa Ana, Calif.
It will fly on Saturdays only between Cancun and Milwaukee and between Nassau, Bahamas, and Atlanta.
Southwest said that in October, it will start daily nonstop flights between Denver and Cancun and Saturday flights between Denver and Los Cabos.
Southwest Airlines Co. added international service when it bought AirTran Airways in 2011 and is converting some AirTran routes to Southwest. In January, Southwest announced July service to Aruba, the Bahamas and Jamaica.
Rival clothing firms inch closer to deal
NEW YORK - Men’s Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc. are moving a bit closer to a possible combination, announcing they are exchanging certain confidential information with each other.
Men’s Wearhouse Inc. said Monday that it’s also received a draft merger agreement from Jos. A. Bank.
The news comes four days after Jos. A. Bank, based in Hampstead, Md., rejected the latest acquisition bid of $1.78 billion from Men’s Wearhouse.
The offer of $63.50 per share was increased from Men’s Wearhouse’s previous bid of $57.50 per share.
The Houston company has said it may raise the bid to $65 per share, if some conditions are met.
While Jos. A. Bank nixed the $63.50 per share offer, it did say Thursday that it was willing to meet with Men’s Wearhouse to discuss the higher bid.
Men’s Wearhouse’s $63.50 per share offer is set to expire March 12, unless extended.
Walter Loeb, a New York-based retail consultant, said that the latest maneuver is much more than gamesmanship between the two chains.
“I think they’re getting closer to a deal,” he said.
“There’s pressure from shareholders from both sides.” - The Associated Press
Business, Pages 20 on 03/04/2014