News in brief

Windstream sells shares of spinoff

Windstream Holdings disposed of 14.7 million shares of Communications Sales & Leasing Inc. to satisfy some of Windstream's debt, Communication Sales & Leasing said Wednesday in a news release.

The shares were then acquired by Citigroup Global Markets from the Windstream creditors and sold to Searchlight Capital Partners. Communications Sales did not receive any proceeds from the disposition of the shares.

Windstream spun off Communications Sales & Leasing, a real estate investment trust, last year. Both companies are based in Little Rock.

Included with the transaction, Searchlight was given the right to add one member to Communications Sales & Leasing's board. This right will terminate if Searchlight's ownership of Communications Sales falls below 5 percent before June 15, 2019, or below 8 percent after that.

-- David Smith

Wal-Mart to widen accounting-job cuts

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is cutting some accounting and invoicing positions in about 500 stores as part of its plans to improve efficiency.

The positions being eliminated are part of a pilot program that began this year in about 50 stores, according to Wal-Mart spokesman Kory Lundberg. Wal-Mart decided to expand the pilot to about 500 stores, most of which are in Western states. The program affects positions that cover accounting and invoicing for individual stores.

There are about two or three employees in those positions in each store. Lundberg said those employees will be offered other positions in the stores. Wal-Mart said in its test of about 50 stores that less than 1 percent of the employees whose positions were eliminated left the company.

A central office in Bentonville will take over the responsibility of invoicing for the stores to provide consistency and replace outdated methods. Money will be counted at each store by a “cash recycler” machine. Lundberg said the changes will help simplify procedures and reduce opportunities for errors.

-- Robbie Neiswanger

12 stocks gain to lift Arkansas Index 2.01

The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, rose 2.01 to 316.18 Wednesday.

The Arkansas Index moved higher as 12 stocks advanced and 6 stocks declined.

"U.S. stocks ended lower on Wednesday as the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged as expected," John Blackwell, managing director of equity trading at Stephens, said.

Total volume for the index was 19.4 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 06/16/2016

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