Stories by Stacey Roberts
RSSDrive-By Shooting Reported
SPRINGDALE — Police are investigating a drive-by shooting reported on Braxton Drive on Friday night.
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PEOPLE & PLACES
Williams Marks 98th Birthday Continue reading...
Wal-Mart focus: Recouping sales
Making progress but wish it were faster, CEO says in Rogers
LITTLE ROCK — When Wal-Mart Stores Inc. embarked on a major destocking effort two years ago, it created a gap in both selection and price-point of which smart competitors took advantage, the company’s head of U.S. sales said Thursday. Continue reading...
Spring sogginess bogs down meat business as grillers cool heels
Cool, wet weather, a later Easter and a rise in corn and beef prices have some meat retailers worried about their profits at a time when they usually are increasing revenue. Continue reading...
Poultry firms face antitrust suit
Justice Department says sale of Tyson plant to George’s illegal
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil antitrust lawsuit Tuesday challenging the sale of a Tyson Foods Inc. poultry processing facility in Virginia to George’s Inc. Continue reading...
Tyson revenue up, but profit flat
Higher grain costs mute effects of rise in meat prices
Higher meat prices played a tug-of-war with rising grain costs to keep Tyson Foods Inc.’s profits flat in a second quarter in which the Springdale meat processor’s revenue hit a new record. Continue reading...
Wal-Mart again tops Fortune 500
Bentonville-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. repeated its appearance Thursday at the top of Fortune magazine’s list of the 500 American companies that generated the most revenue in the previous year. Continue reading...
Fort Smith firm must pay $14.51 million in ’02 suit
Fort Smith-based O.K. Industries Inc. must pay a $14.51 million judgment to Oklahoma poultry farmers after the U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear the company’s appeal of a class-action lawsuit. Continue reading...
First Federal puts finishing touches on Bear State deal
First Federal Bancshares of Arkansas Inc. said the closing of the agreement between it and the Little Rockbased financial group pouring a planned $46.3 million into the savings-and-loan holding company was finalized Tuesday. Continue reading...
Demand for corn propels price
Costlier livestock feed likely to show at supermarket
LITTLE ROCK — The United States’ corn crop — valued at $66.7 billion in 2010 — is in higher demand both in this country and around the world this year, driving up its market price and costs for companies that use it to feed poultry, cattle and hogs. Continue reading...
2 press for athletic-club payoff order
LITTLE ROCK — The founders of the Fayetteville Athletic Center filed a motion in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Tuesday asking the judge to enforce a management agreement that was part of the Chapter 11 reorganization plan approved by the court in March. Continue reading...
Pay falls for Wal-Mart executives
LITTLE ROCK — Executives at the world’s largest retailer were paid less in fiscal 2011 than in the previous year, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Monday. Continue reading...
Full circle
Brandon Barber worked his way up from a bank teller to become one of Northwest Arkansas' most successful developers. These days, he's waiting tables, unsure how he'll ever repay $54 million in debt.
Brandon Barber proved himself willing to gamble on real estate and with high-stakes games of chance in Las Vegas casinos. Continue reading...
PART NINE: BRANDON BARBER Full circle
NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — Brandon Barber proved himself willing to gamble on real estate and with high-stakes games of chance in Las Vegas casinos. He rode Northwest Arkansas’ growth bubble for 10 years until it popped, leaving him with an astonishing debt of $54 million. Continue reading...
Full circle
Brandon Barber worked his way up from a bank teller to become one of Northwest Arkansas' most successful developers. These days, he's waiting tables, unsure how he'll ever repay $54 million in debt.
Brandon Barber proved himself willing to gamble on real estate and with high-stakes games of chance in Las Vegas casinos. Continue reading...
Bank’s filing to reflect net loss
1st Federal logs earnings drop
LITTLE ROCK — First Federal Bancshares of Arkansas Inc. will not file a separate fourth-quarter earnings report reflecting a $439,000 loss with the Securities and Exchange Commission but included the information in the company’s annual report, its chief executive said Wednesday. Continue reading...
Northwest building permits fall
Residential units saw 31% fewer approvals than ’09
NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — A drop in residential building permits is a signal that banks and builders remain cautious despite more than 5,000 lots waiting for future construction in Northwest Arkansas, a local economist and researcher said Tuesday. Continue reading...
Biodiesel demand outstrips supply
NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — The Dynamic Fuels renewable biodiesel plant is operating at its capacity of 5,000 gallons a day while demand is outstripping supply, executives of one of the two companies that operate the plant said Tuesday. Continue reading...
Focus spread to all units will aid Tyson, chief says
A focus on a strong balance sheet, execution of business plan and improvement in operations has positioned Tyson Foods Inc. to weather an uncertain economic future, the Springdale-based company’s executive officer said. Continue reading...
Judge OKs athletic-club plan
Ruling paves way for Fayetteville facility to exit bankruptcy
FAYETTEVILLE — A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge approved the reorganization plan for The Fayetteville Athletic Club on Wednesday, clearing the way for the company to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy by the end of the month. Continue reading...
Study finds fescue fungus hampers calf crop
LITTLE ROCK — A three-year University of Arkansas Agriculture Division study found that moving cows out of some tall-fescue fields before they are bred leads to increased profits when their calves are sold. Continue reading...
NW’s business-space leasing rises
NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — Segments of the commercial real estate market in Washington and Benton counties are showing some positive signs toward economic recovery, according to information released Tuesday by Arvest Bank and the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Continue reading...
Report: Commercial real estate shows improvement
Segments of the commercial real estate market in Washington and Benton counties are showing some signs of recovery, according to information released today by Arvest Bank and the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Continue reading...
$17.7 million flowing to idled poultry raisers
Some 154 poultry farmers throughout Arkansas have already received their share of $17.7 million in federal relief funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the state Agriculture Department said Thursday. Continue reading...
Hearing focuses on broker’s papers
FAYETTEVILLE — Testimony in a hearing requested by a creditor of Fayetteville real estate broker John David Lindsey on Tuesday focused on the accuracy of financial documents submitted to the company for the lease of $2 million in equipment in April 2008. Continue reading...
Tyson cuts turnover nearly in half
Company cites values, tenets for retention
Tyson Foods Inc. has nearly halved its hourly work-force turnover rate in the past three years using a combination of strategies built around what the company calls its three guideposts, its core values, cultural tenets and team-member bill of rights. Continue reading...
Alabama firm buying Townsends
Georgetown, Del.-based poultry company Townsends Inc. won court approval Thursday to sell almost all its assets to an Alabama-based poultry company and an investment firm for about $76.4 million. Continue reading...
Tyson incurs fines over vet payments
Tyson Foods Inc. will pay $5.2 million in civil and criminal penalties in agreements Thursday with the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over improper payments made to government-employed inspection veterinarians in Mexico. Continue reading...
Experts suggest keeping watch on roofs
NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — Concerns about structures collapsing from heavy snow remained Wednesday as a winter storm dumped as much as 2 feet of snow across a wide swath of the region. Continue reading...
Mexico probing Tyson, Pilgrim
They undersell, complaint says
Mexico’s government will begin investigating a complaint that U.S. chicken processors sold legs and thighs on the Mexican market at below-production costs in 2010, according to information published Tuesday on the country’s government website. Continue reading...
Tyson reports record earnings
1st-quarter sales total $294 million
SPRINGDALE — Tyson Foods Inc. reported record sales and earnings in the first quarter of fiscal 2011 on the day of the company’s annual shareholders meeting in Springdale on Friday. Continue reading...
Stores, truckers, farmers dealt a blow by weather
NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — Retail, meat processing and transportation businesses in Northwest Arkansas reported delays and shutdowns Tuesday because of treacherous road conditions that affected a large swath of the nation. Continue reading...
385 losing jobs at Petit Jean plant
LITTLE ROCK — Danville-based Petit Jean Poultry Inc. is closing its Arkadelphia deboning plant on April 1, eliminating 385 jobs at the Clark County facility. Continue reading...
Deboning plants offer up to 300 new jobs
A $1 million expansion of deboning operations at Tyson Foods Inc. plants in Berryville and Green Forest will add 250-300 jobs in Carroll County. Continue reading...
Equity firm, investor group acquire I.O. Metro
Lowell-based specialty furniture retailer I.O. Metro was purchased Friday by Consumer Growth Partners and an investor group that includes Little Rock-based Diamond State Ventures. Continue reading...
Tyson joins staff-auditing program
LITTLE ROCK — Tyson Foods Inc. became the largest company and the first major food producer to join a cooperative program with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement during a signing ceremony Thursday. Continue reading...
Call center coming to Fort Smith
Operation to add 600 jobs to area
NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — Sykes Enterprises Inc. of Tampa, Fla., a global provider of customer contact management services, plans to open an inbound call center in Fort Smith’s former Phoenix Village Mall, the mayor and a local developer said Wednesday. Continue reading...
Trial near on claims against Lindsey
LITTLE ROCK — Attorneys for John David Lindsey are to address challenges to his bankruptcy petition at a trial Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Fayetteville. Continue reading...
VIDEO: Regional icon Tyson dies
Cancer takes ‘best-known poultry person’ at 80
Donald John Tyson, son of the founder of Tyson Foods Inc. and the man credited with the tremendous ascent of world’s largest meat producer over three decades of his leadership, died Thursday morning in Springdale. Continue reading...
Cost put on new labeling for meat
Rule offers look at fact-panel tab
NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — Requiring meat and poultry retailers and processors to put nutrition “fact” labels on the most popular cuts will cost the industry between $10.5 million and $10.9 million a year for the next 20 years, according to the cost estimates included in the final rule published Wednesday in the Federal Register. Continue reading...
U.S. shifting from beef importer to exporter
A weak dollar and anticipated stronger demand for beef in 2011 is creating a situation that ranchers and beef processors have never seen before, that of the United States as a net exporter of beef rather than an importer, according to industry economists. Continue reading...
U.S. beef groups back S. Korea pact
The Fair Trade Agreement between the United States and South Korea has the approval of beef industry groups despite its failure to eliminate a restriction against meat from animals older than 30 months, beef experts said Tuesday. Continue reading...
High court takes sex-bias lawsuit
Wal-Mart welcomes decision
NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear arguments on whether Wal-Mart Stores Inc. must face a sex-bias suit as a class action on behalf of potentially more than a million of its current and former workers. Continue reading...
60,000 critique meat-act revisions
In filing,Tyson predicts lawsuits
Springdale-based Tyson Foods Inc. submitted one of more than 60,000 public comments on the proposed rule changes for the Packers and Stockyards Act. Continue reading...
First Federal reports quarterly loss
First Federal Bancshares of Arkansas Inc. reported Tuesday a net loss of $5.36 million from core operations for the third quarter in a delayed financial report that earned it an out-of-compliance notification from the Nasdaq Exchange. Continue reading...
Swiss rival set to buy Baldor for $4 billion
FORT SMITH — Swiss competitor ABB Ltd. is buying electric-motor manufacturer Baldor Electric Co. in a $4.2 billion deal, the Arkansas company announced Tuesday. Continue reading...
Poultry runoff spurs scientists to find solution Machine that injects litter under farm soil wins patent
A concept, with more than a decade of work behind it, reached a major milestone when a research scientist and a research technician from Arkansas were awarded a patent for a machine to directly inject dry poultry litter below the soil surface. Continue reading...
Tyson plant at Hope to add about 250 jobs
A major improvement project at the Tyson Foods Inc.’s poultry facility in Hope will add about 250 jobs and up to $8 million in additional payroll when it is completed sometime after the first of the year. Continue reading...
Turkey dinners cheaper in state
Price beats 2009, national average
The cost of preparing a traditional Thanksgiving meal is lower in Arkansas than in most of the United States, despite rising wholesale prices for the main course — the turkey, according to an annual survey conducted by the American Farm Bureau. Continue reading...
Packers forecast loss from rule shift
Livestock groups say GDP to fall
An industry-commissioned economic analysis of proposed changes to livestock marketing rules projects a $1.5 billion loss to the country’s annual gross domestic product and a reduction of more than $359 million in tax revenue within the first five years of implementation. Continue reading...
