LITTLE ROCK — Electric utility set to seek rate increase
Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp. expects to ask for a rate increase early next month, the Little Rock-based corporation said in a filing last week with the Arkansas Public Service Commission.
Arkansas Electric filed an eight-page application with the commission indicating it would seek a rate increase, but it did not say what the rate change would be.
Arkansas Electric is the second largest electric utility in the state with about 500,000 customers in Arkansas and surrounding states. It provides Arkansas’ 17 electric distribution cooperatives with electricity.
It has assets of about $1.3 billion and annual energy sales of almost $660 million.
Entergy Arkansas is the state’s largest electric utility with about 700,000 customers.
Windstream seeking $900 million in loans
Little Rock-based telecommunications-services provider Windstream Corp., which has $8.7 billion of debt, said Monday that it is seeking as much as $900 million in term loans under its current credit agreement.
Windstream is asking for lender consent to restate its existing loans to add the new debt.
The company’s stock closed at $9.78 Monday, down 7 percent, in trading on the Nasdaq exchange.
Proceeds from the loan would be used to repay its revolving line of credit and for general corporate purposes, Windstream said. The revolving line of credit totaled $68 million on March 31.
The company also has $446 million in term loans from banks that are due in 2013 and 2016 and another $1.33 billion in loans from nonbank lenders that is due in 2013 and 2015.
Windstream is a telephone and broadband Internet provider.
Arkansas Index falls as 12 stocks decline
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, fell 1.88 to 228.47 on Monday.
Twelve stocks declined and four advanced.
Trucking company stocks dropped Monday, led by USA Truck, which lost 3.4 percent in light trading. The Van Buren firm closed at a 52-week low of $4.26.
Arkansas Best, a Fort Smith-based trucker, was down 3 percent in light trading.
P.A.M. Transportation Services was off 2.5 percent in below-average trading and J.B. Hunt Transport Services fell less than 1 percent on average volume.
First Federal Bancshares had the day’s best performance, gaining 1.8 percent on a quarter of its average shares traded.
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 07/24/2012