NEWS IN BRIEF

— Acxiom announces 2 new board members

Little Rock-based Acxiom Corp. on Monday announced it has selected two new board members, Jerry D. Gramaglia and Clark Kokich.

Company spokesman Scott Maple said the new directors were selected too late to be included in the company's proxy statement, which would have led to a vote at last week's shareholders meeting. The directors now must be considered by shareholders at next year's meeting, Maple said.

Gramaglia would replace Jeff Ubben, who resigned from the board in October, Maple said.

Ubben is chief executive of San Francisco-based ValueAct Capital, a hedge fund that attempted with a private equity firm in 2007 to buy Acxiom.

Gramaglia is a private investor and advises consumer oriented technology start-ups, Acxiom said in a release.

Recently he was a partner for Arrowpath Venture Partners, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm. He also has served as president and chief operating officer for E*TRADE Group Inc.

Kokich would fill a new seat for the marketing services firm. He is board chairman for Razorfish, a Seattle-based consulting company focused on digital marketing and technology.

Renters get more time to move under new law

A recent federal law gives a renter up to 90 days to relocate when the home is in foreclosure, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said Monday.

The Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009 says that in most cases renters who are current on their rent are allowed 90 days to move.

The law applies to the foreclosure of mortgages made by any bank insured or guaranteed by the federal government or sold to any of the federally regulated agencies such as the Federal National Mortgage Association.

Most residential mortgages will be covered.

"In such uncertain economic times, people who rent properties that qualify for extra protection under this law should breathe a little easier," McDaniel said.

Arkansas Index slides as eight stocks decline

The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, fell 0.50 to 159.38 Monday.

"After a morning rally, U.S. stocks finished flat after SunTrust Bank threw cold water on the market, saying credit losses and commercial real estate may remain weak through 2010," said Chris Harkins, senior vice president and managing director of Delta Trust Investments Inc.

in Little Rock. "The Arkansas Index had 10 stocks moving higher and eight declining."

Bank of the Ozarks slipped 3.4 percent, Harkins said.

America's Car-Mart jumped 2.7 percent and is up 10 percent in the past week, Harkins said.

The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.

Business, Pages 21 on 08/25/2009

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