News in brief

Bank of Ozarks lends $490M in Nashville

Little Rock-based Bank of the Ozarks has lent almost $490 million in the past three years to eight projects in a construction boom in Nashville, Tenn., the Nashville Business Journal reported.

That is more than any other bank has lent in the city in recent years, the Journal said. In all, $2.8 billion has been made in loans for Nashville construction.

Bank of the Ozarks made a $93.9 million loan for a 45-story skyscraper and also helped finance a 27-story Westin Hotel, two mixed-use developments, an apartment complex and other retail, office and land development projects.

Lenders are attracted to Nashville because its population is expected to grow significantly in the next 20 years, the Nashville publication said.

George Gleason, Bank of the Ozarks' chairman and chief executive officer, told the Journal, "We've got active loans in 42 states, so being in Nashville is nothing unusual for us."

-- David Smith

Flier traffic up 6.5% at Clinton National

The state's largest airport saw a nearly 6.5 percent increase in the number of departing and arriving passengers in March compared with a year earlier.

As a result, passenger traffic at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field in Little Rock is 2.76 percent higher in the first three months of 2017 compared with the same period last year.

The number of passengers last month totaled 170,208, or 6.42 percent higher than in March 2016, which recorded 159,936 passengers.

Through the first three months of the year, 443,648 passengers went through the airport compared with the 431,717 passengers that went through in the first three months of 2016.

Last year, passenger traffic totaled 1,991,504, or less than 1 percent higher than 2015 levels. The year 2016 marked the first increase in passenger traffic at Clinton National since 2012, which saw a 4 percent increase, to 2,292,962.

-- Noel Oman

Arkansas Index rises 1.23, ends at 341.27

The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, rose 1.23 to 341.27 Tuesday.

"The major averages closed in negative territory as investors responded to disappointing earnings reports and lingering geopolitical tensions," said Bob Williams, senior vice president and managing director of Simmons First Investment Group Inc. in Little Rock.

Total volume for the index was 18.4 million shares.

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 04/19/2017

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