News in brief

Bank sues archivist over $3.5M in loans

Centennial Bank sued John Rogers, a North Little Rock archivist, his ex-wife Angelica and two businesses Thursday for more than $3.5 million for failure to make payments on four loans.

The lawsuit was filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court.

From 2006 to 2013, the couple borrowed almost $3.9 million in four loans, Centennial said. Each loan was modified repeatedly and the maturity dates were extended but the couple failed to pay off any of them, Centennial said.

The lawsuit is one in a string of about 15 lawsuits filed against John Rogers since January 2014 in connection with his photo archive business. Rogers has estimated that he has more than 60 million photos from 50 newspaper archives.

In the primary lawsuit, First Arkansas Bank & Trust of Jacksonville claims Rogers owes it more than $14 million.

Immanuel Baptist buys vacated Kroger

Immanuel Baptist Church bought the former Kroger grocery store at Westchase Plaza, 315 N. Shackleford Road in Little Rock for $3.65 million. The Arkansas office of Colliers International was the listing agent for the sale of the 45,500-square-foot property.

Flake & Kelley Commercial of Little Rock represented the church.

Mark Carter, associate pastor at Immanuel Baptist, said the church has no definitive plans for the property and that the church was not looking to purchase the land when it became available. Kroger closed the store at the end of February. Officials with Kroger, the nation's second-largest grocer, said two other Kroger stores in close proximity led them to close the location.

The property is adjacent to the church.

11 issues lose value as index drops 2.73

The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, dropped 2.73 to 351.73 Thursday.

"U.S. stocks sank lower on Thursday in a choppy trading session as traders await [today's] all-important jobs report from July," said John Blackwell, senior vice president and managing director of equity trading at Stephens Inc. in Little Rock. "The Arkansas Index moved lower as 11 stocks declined and seven advanced."

Shares of Windstream jumped 9.9 percent and Acxiom rose 8.9 percent, both in active trading.

Murphy Oil rose 4.3 percent on heavy volume after hitting a 52-week low.

Murphy USA tumbled 5.7 percent in heavy trading.

The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.

Business on 08/07/2015

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