Business news in brief

Car-Mart opens its 139th dealership

America’s Car-Mart Inc. opened its 139th dealership, its fifth for the fiscal year, according to a Wednesday news release. The new Valdosta, Ga., operation, in the southeast part of the state near the Florida border, is the fifth dealership in Georgia for the buy-here, pay-here used-car dealer. It plans to open three more dealerships by April 30, the end of its fiscal 2015. In February, the Bentonville company reported a strong third quarter with results beating analysts’ estimates for the third quarter in a row. Car-Mart dealerships can also be found in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. Car-Mart shares closed at $55.22, down 90 cents or less than 2 percent in trading Wednesday on the Nasdaq. Shares have traded as low as $34.90 and as high as $57.55 in the past year.

— John Magsam

Fears of overbreeding hit poultry stocks

Shares of Tyson Foods, Sanderson Farms and Pilgrim’s Pride continued to slide Wednesday on fears that the poultry industry is breeding too many chicks. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a Monday report that leading breeders placed 8 million broiler-type chicks for future hatchery supply flocks in February, an increase of 9 percent from last year. The report also said that 711 million broiler-type chicks hatched in February, an increase of 3 percent compared with last year. Analysts have said that if too many chickens are raised, supply could outpace demand, leading to cheaper chicken in grocery stores and lower profits for poultry companies. But Tyson has said there’s a strong market for birds — even if there are more of them than expected.

— Brian Fanney

Union vote set at S.C. Boeing plants

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Production workers at Boeing plants in South Carolina will decide next month whether they want union representation by the Machinists.

Local media outlets report that the National Labor Relations Board has set April 22 as the date for the vote on whether to unionize.

The union last week petitioned the board for an election for production workers at the company's 787 assembly plant and the nearby Interiors Responsibility Center, which provides interior parts for the 787 Dreamliner. The vote also includes production workers at the company's new propulsion plant.

The exact number of those eligible to vote must be provided to the board by the company. Union officials said last week that they expected at least 2,400 workers to be eligible.

Boeing employs about 7,500 workers in South Carolina.

-- The Associated Press

As dollar surges, imports hurt steel mills

The U.S. economic recovery is gaining steam, and the dollar has surged. That's bad news for the $100 billion domestic steel industry.

Foreign competitors with weaker currencies pay less to produce the metal. That's allowing them to undercut U.S. steelmakers in their own backyard as demand wanes in China, Russia and Brazil.

The result: The amount of imported steel used in the U.S. has swelled in the first two months of 2015 to 33 percent from 28 percent in 2014, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute. At the same time, idled production capacity at U.S. mills has grown to 31 percent, the highest since 2009.

"Imports have effectively taken all of the growth upside for the industry," said Curt Woodworth, a New York-based analyst at Nomura Holdings Inc.

Steelmakers including Nucor Corp., AK Steel Holding Corp. and Steel Dynamics Inc. have all warned that profit is going to take a hit this quarter, and executives are scheduled to be in Washington today to urge lawmakers to trim allowable imports at a hearing of the Congressional Steel Caucus.

-- Bloomberg News

SEC approves less-regulated small IPOs

U.S. regulators opened a new path Wednesday for small companies to raise money in less-regulated, mini public offerings.

Small businesses will be able to raise as much as $50 million from the general public without certain regulatory hurdles, such as approval from every state where the firm has investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission unanimously approved the rule.

The regulation stems from a provision in the 2012 JOBS Act that was pushed by the financial industry, including investment banker William Hambrecht, who helped take public companies such as Apple Inc. and Google Inc. Hambrecht has said he plans to underwrite such offerings.

Critics, including the state regulators, have warned that the less-regulated offerings open the door to fraud. The SEC's rules, which were proposed two years ago, will make many deals greater than $20 million entirely exempt from review by state regulators.

Businesses have argued that the rule will make it easier for them to raise capital and create jobs.

"You're talking about companies that are further along in their life cycle and are looking for millions of dollars," said D.J. Paul, a fundraising consultant for small companies who sits on an SEC advisory committee. "Those tend to be companies that deploy that money toward the creation of jobs and actual research and development."

-- Bloomberg News

Wells Fargo to cut 1,000 Milwaukee jobs

NEW YORK -- Wells Fargo will close its home lending servicing office in Milwaukee and eliminate 1,000 jobs, saying fewer homeowners are falling behind on payments and seeking help keeping their homes.

Employees at the office work with U.S. residents who were behind on their home loan payments. In an emailed statement, Wells Fargo & Co. said Wednesday that as the economy has improved over the past two years, fewer customers have become delinquent on their payments, and fewer have needed assistance to stay in their homes. The company says it will continue to offer assistance to borrowers facing financial hardship.

Wells Fargo will close the office in late July. It says it will inform employees of other job opportunities within the company.

Wells Fargo said the Milwaukee office is one of its smaller loan servicing sites. About 48,000 people work for the company's home lending business. The San Francisco-based company has about 265,000 employees.

-- The Associated Press

Business on 03/26/2015

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