LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY "I heard a woman's voice saying,'Warning, warning, carbon monoxide.'" Fern January, of Sheridan Article, 1D
Acxiom to buy back $75 million of stock
Acxiom Corp. on Monday said it has instituted a program to buy back $75 million of company stock during the next 12 months.
The Little Rock-based data broker said it would buy back the stock in open market or privately negotiated transactions. The company said it could suspend or discontinue the program at any time.
Companies often buy back stock to drive up value.
Acxiom shares closed at $13.40 on the Nasdaq on Monday, up 3 percent, or 39 cents.
The stock, which traded at $28.25 per share in May, has fallen after a $3 billion sale to a private equity firm and hedge fund collapsed early this month. Last week, the stock tumbled to a 52-week low of $13.
Hearing covers alternative-fuels program
Proposed regulations for the Arkansas alternative fuels development program were discussed Monday during a public hearing held by the Arkansas Agriculture Department.
The program was established by Act 873 of 2007 and received $20 million for the biennium that ends on June 30, 2009.
Grant applications for the initial year of funding - for investments made between Jan. 1, 2007, and June 30, 2008 - will be due Feb. 28.
Grants to alternative fuel producers and feedstock processors are limited to $2 million per applicant per year. Grants to alternative fuel distributors are limited to $50,000 per distribution site.
More information is available at the Arkansas Agriculture Department's Web site: aad.arkansas.gov, or by calling (501) 683-4851.
6-month Treasury bills fall to 2-year low
WASHINGTON - Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills were mixed in Monday's auction with rates on three-month bills rising, while six-month bills dropped to the lowest level in two years.
The Treasury Department auctioned $20 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 3.920 percent, up from 3.900 percent last week. Another $18 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 3.945 percent, down from 3.990 percent last week.
The three-month rate was the highest since these bills averaged 4.185 percent two weeks ago. The six-month rate was the lowest since these bills averaged 3.870 percent on Oct. 3, 2005.
The discount rates reflect that the bills sell for less than face value. For a $10,000 bill, the three-month price was $9,900.91 while a six-month bill sold for $9,800.56.
Separately, the Federal Reserve said Monday that the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for making changes in adjustable rate mortgages, fell to 3.97 percent last week from 4.14 percent the previous week.
GM to research alternative fuels in China
BEIJING - General Motors announced Monday it would set up a $250 million alternative-fuel research center in Shanghai, China.
"We believe China has the potential to become a leader in the adoption of alternative propulsion systems," General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Waggoner said.
He said construction of the first phase of The General Motors Center for Advanced Science and Research would be finished late next year.
Waggoner also announced that GM would make a $5 million grant to set up The China Automotive Energy Research Center along with Tsinghua University and Shanghai Automotive Industries Corp., or SAIC. It will be based at the Beijing campus of the university.
Waggoner made the announcements along with Chen Hong, the president of SAIC, and He Jianqin, Tsinghua's executive vice president.
China, whose major cities are shrouded in pollution, has been trying to promote cleaner and more efficient fuels as part of efforts to cut pollution and rising dependence on imported oil.
Beijing has made cleaner cars a policy priority, targeting the field as one of 11 priority areas in a 15-year technology-development plan issued in February 2006. It promised grants and tax breaks to support industry efforts.
China already is the world's No. 2 oil consumer after the United States and saw imports soar by 14.5 percent in 2006, driven by economic growth that has topped 10 percent for the past four years.
A boom in car sales has added to smog in China's major cities, which are among the world's dirtiest. Vehicle sales jumped 25.1 percent last year to 7.2 million units, including 3.8 million passenger cars.
GM already has a joint-venture technology center with SAIC in Shanghai and operates three experimental fuel-cell buses in the city.
GM turns to U.S. for hybrid transmissions
General Motors Corp., which began production Monday of a new hybrid transmission, will get more than three-quarters of the parts for the gasoline-electric system from U.S. suppliers.
Seventy-two of the transmission's 91 parts suppliers are based in the U.S., GM said in a statement. The transmission will be installed in Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon gasolineelectric sport utility vehicles starting next month at a plant in Arlington, Texas. GM spent $118 million to expand a Baltimore factory to build the hybrid system.
The suppliers will give an American flavor to technology that has been dominated by the Japanese. Last month, Detroitbased GM said it will build its Chevrolet Volt electric car in a Hamtramck, Mich., factory starting as early as 2010.
GM will add three additional hybrid light truck models next year. In addition, it will build transmissions for two Chrysler LLC hybrid models at the Baltimore plant as part of a $1 billion partnership with Chrysler, Daimler AG and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG.
SEC halts inquiry into Jones Soda sell-off
SEATTLE - Jones Soda Co. on Monday said the San Francisco regional office of the Securities and Exchange Commission terminated an informal investigation into stock trades made by company executives and board members.
The SEC office does not plan to seek enforcement action, according to a letter the soda maker said it received last Thursday.
Jones Soda has been hit by several shareholder lawsuits claiming executives and board members pushed up the share price, then sold stock before poor first- and second-quarter earnings reports caused the price to plunge. The company has denied the claims.
Shares of the soda maker sank 43 cents, or 4.3 percent, to close at $9.54.
Business, Pages 22 on 10/30/2007