Wal-Mart to close
office in Oklahoma
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is closing an administrative claims office in Bartlesville, Okla., by the end of October and will move the work to the company's central claims office in Rogers.
Spokesman Anne Hatfield said closing the location will allow the retailer to improve efficiency by bringing its operations together in one location. There are about 130 employees at the Bartlesville location who will be affected by the closing.
Hatfield said those workers will have opportunities to transfer to positions in the Rogers claims office or other Wal-Mart locations in Bartlesville. The town has a Wal-Mart distribution center, which employs about 600 workers, and a supercenter that employs about 300.
The company will host a career fair in early October for workers who are not interested in transferring, Hatfield said.
The move continues Wal-Mart's efforts to improve efficiency by streamlining operations. The company eliminated about 7,000 back office accounting and invoicing jobs in stores last year.
-- Robbie Neiswanger
Fort Smith company
sells to Illinois firm
QualServ Solutions, a Fort Smith-based restaurant kitchen manufacturing company, was bought by the Elgin, Ill.-based Middleby Corp., a publicly traded company that builds and sells kitchen equipment to customers around the globe.
With annual revenue of about $100 million, according to a news release, QualServ will enable Middleby to offer its customers more in-depth data analysis and logistical services. Neither company disclosed details of the acquisition.
"QualServ has grown substantially over the past few years and combined with Middleby we anticipate growth through expansion of their capabilities into international markets by leveraging Middleby's global footprint," Middleby CEO Selim Bassoul said in a prepared statement.
The QualServ acquisition follows Middleby's purchase of baking equipment manufacturer Burford Corp. in May, and Follett LLC, an ice-machine maker, in 2016.
-- Dalton LaFerney
State index climbs
3.08 to close week
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, rose 3.08 to 345.10 Friday.
All but two stocks gained ground Friday.
Windstream rose 4.4 percent in light trading, and USA Truck climbed 4.1 percent.
For the week, 13 stocks rose and five declined.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.
Business on 09/02/2017