Big River Steel mill rolls out 1st product
Big River Steel has begun operations in its melt shop and hot mill, the steel mill near Osceola said Wednesday.
Chicago-based Zekelman Industries bought the first hot-rolled coil produced at the plant, paying $100,000. The $100,000 was donated by Big River Steel and Zekelman to the Wounded Warrior Project and Arkansas Northeastern College, where workers at the mill are trained.
At the plant, for which construction started in July 2014, Big River Steel plans to recycle 2 million tons of scrap metal to produce 1.6 million tons of finished steel products annually. The $1.3 billion plant is built on 1,300 acres in Mississippi County.
It is the only electric arc furnace mill to produce hot-rolled steel as thick as 1 inch and as wide as 78 inches.
Earlier this year, Big River Steel commissioned two other areas of the plant.
-- David Smith
Shares net $325,000 for Car-Mart's CEO
The CEO of America's Car-Mart Inc. made $325,000 from a recent stock sale, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Hank Henderson, the chief executive of the Bentonville-based used-car dealer, acquired 10,000 shares at $11.90 each and sold an equal number of shares for $44.40 each. After the moves were complete, he had made $325,000. Henderson still holds 76,984 shares of the company.
On Nov. 18, the company reported a profit of $5 million for the quarter that ended Oct. 31, compared with a loss of $495,000 for the same quarter a year ago. Revenue was up nearly 13 percent, to $150.2 million.
Car-Mart shares have traded as low as $19.49 and as high as $47.75 over the past year.
-- John Magsam
No stocks gaining, index gives up 4.25
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, dropped 4.25 to 371.06 Wednesday.
None of the 18 stocks in the index gained ground.
Murphy Oil fell 4.4 percent on low volume.
USA Truck lost 2.9 percent light trading.
America's Car-Mart declined 2.8 percent on average volume.
ArcBest dropped 2.6 percent in active trading.
Total volume for the index was 21.2 million shares.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.
Business on 12/15/2016