Westrock Coffee
sets up hub in N.C.
Little Rock-based Westrock Coffee is establishing a Financial Shared Services Center in North Carolina to support all of the company's operations in the United States, the company said Tuesday.
The new center will be at the S&D Coffee & Tea facility in Concord, N.C., and will include hiring 40 workers in the accounting fields, Westrock Coffee said in a release. Plans are to add more jobs to match the company's expected expansion.
"A centralized account team in the heart of our coffee, tea, extracts, and ingredients manufacturing operations will drive the scalability and efficiencies necessary to support Westrock's future growth," Chris Pledger, Westrock Coffee's chief financial officer, said in a statement.
Westrock Coffee is an integrated coffee, tea and extract company serving retailers, restaurants, convenience stores, commercial accounts and the hospitality industry.
S&D Coffee & Tea was acquired by Westrock Coffee in February of 2020 in a deal valued at $405 million. The combined company employs about 1,200 workers across the world.
-- John Magsam
JetBlue opts to keep
its HQ in New York
NEW YORK -- JetBlue will maintain its headquarters in New York.
The low-cost airline announced Tuesday that it will remain in Queens and expand its terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
JetBlue had considered moving its base to Florida when its lease at a building in Long Island City ends in 2023. The airline already operates a training center in Orlando and has a subsidiary based in Fort Lauderdale.
Instead, the airline said that after going through a competitive bidding process it intends to stay in New York where it began in 1998. The airline will negotiate a new lease for its headquarters.
Chief Executive Officer Robin Hayes said New York is still a great place to live, work and visit, and JetBlue wants to help the city recover from the pandemic.
The announcement was praised by leaders in New York. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said JetBlue's growth at JFK Airport will create thousands of new jobs.
-- The Associated Press
Arkansas Index ends
day with 7.72 uptick
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, closed Tuesday at 652.65, up 7.72.
"Wall Street's main indexes closed higher on Tuesday as the S&P 500 index hit a record closing high, tapered somewhat by the rising cases of the delta variant and a deepening regulatory scrutiny in China adding pressure on the global technology sector," said Chris Harkins, managing director at Raymond James & Associates.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.