LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Despite renewed hopes over the turn of the year for an imminent turn in housing, it appears that it is too early for such optimism to translate into a rapid pickup in real activity.”
Yelena Shulyatyeva,
an analyst at BNP Paribas Article, 1D
Active oil, gas rigs decrease in U.S.
HOUSTON- The number of rigs actively exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. fell by 16 this week to 1,968.
The Houston-based oil field services company Baker Hughes Inc. reported Friday that 1,313 rigs were exploring for oil and 652 for natural gas. Three were listed as miscellaneous. A year ago this week Baker Hughes reported 1,738 active rigs.
Of the major oil- and gas-producing states, Louisiana gained nine and New Mexico picked up two. California increased by one.
Texas lost 11 rigs, and Oklahoma dropped by 10. Pennsylvania fell by three. Alaska, North Dakota and Wyoming were down by one rig apiece.
Arkansas, Colorado and West Virginia were unchanged.
The rig count peaked at 4,530 in 1981 and bottomed at 488 in 1999.
Ex-exec admits tomato price fixing
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A former California food company owner pleaded guilty Thursday to racketeering in a national tomato price-fixing plot.
Frederick Scott Salyer, 56, was charged with bribing purchasing managers to buy tomato products from his company, Monterey-based SK Foods. Prosecutors say he fixed prices and rigged bids for the sale of tomato products to McCain Foods USA Inc., ConAgra Foods Inc. and Kraft Foods Inc.
Salyer pleaded guilty in federal court in Sacramento to two charges: racketeering and price fixing. The charges carry maximum 20-year prison sentences although Salyer is expected to face four to seven years behind bars at his sentencing July 10. He remains free on $6 million bail.
Salyer was accused of being at the center of a price-fixing ring that helped SK Foods capture 14 percent of the processed tomato market and rise to the second-largest tomato processor in the state before investigators raided the company in 2008.
He had been indicted on 12 felony counts, including bribery, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
Buyers from Kraft, Frito-Lay Inc., Safeway Inc. and B&G Foods Inc. have pleaded guilty to accepting bribes in the case. In all, 10 former employees or customers of SK Foods have pleaded guilty in the investigation.
Bank to auction Gulf Coast properties
Conway-based Home BancShares, which has about 48 Centennial Bank branches in Florida, will auction off more than 100 residential lots as well as several businesses along the Gulf Coast next month.
The properties and businesses were foreclosed on by the bank.
The sale will be held at the Hotel Duval in Tallahassee, Fla., on April 12.
The 108 residential lots for sale range from $8,000 to $195,000 in estimated value, said Bob Birch, regional president of Centennial’s Arkansas division. The property being sold also includes two residential condominiums, a restaurant, a warehouse and a single-family home.
Most of the properties are clustered near the Florida Gulf Coast from Panama City Beach to Carrabelle.
The properties will be sold in 55 groupings in an auction to the highest bidder. The bank will not bid on the properties, Birch said. More information may be found at www.johndixon.com.
Wendy’s backs OK Foods’ stun method
Fast-food chain Wendy’s Co. said Friday that its animalwelfare council favors a method employed by OK Foods Inc. of Fort Smith that uses a low-atmospheric-pressure system to render chickens unconscious before the birds are handled by plant workers.
Wendy’s said it is the first fast-food restaurant chain to back the system, which it deemed a major improvement on industry standards. It urged other chicken producers to embrace the practice.
The process is criticized by some animal-welfare groups but is a substitute for the industry-standard practice of stunning chickens with electricity.
Wendy’s also said it is working with its U.S. and Canadian pork suppliers to eliminate the use of sow gestation stalls over time. Animal-welfare groups say the tightly-packed stalls are inhumane, but pork producers say the larger stalls increase labor and food costs.
However, several big pork producers have agreed to phase out gestation crates and tight pens and switch to larger, more open pens as sentiment about the practice has changed recently. Pork buyer McDonald’s Corp. announced in February that it would phase out crates that tightly confine pregnant sows, a move that was predicted to be a major shift for the industry.
Stock sale boosts exec at Wal-Mart
Eduardo Castro-Wright, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. vice chairman, sold shares valued at $8.7 million this week, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Castro-Wright exercised options to buy 143,206 shares of the company’s stock at prices ranging from $45.69 to $53.01 and subsequently sold the same amount of shares at $60.73 each. After the transactions, Castro-Wright owned 290,110 shares of the company’s stock.
In September, the company announced that Castro-Wright, who also serves as chief executive of Wal-Mart’s global e-commerce and global sourcing businesses, will retire July 1.
AOK bridge track due this summer
WILBURTON, Okla. - Arkansas-Oklahoma Railroad Co., or AOK, is expected to complete bridge track over the North Canadian River this summer to re-establish a dormant section of railroad between McAlester and Shawnee, said Chad Donoley, AOK’s vice president of marketing and government affairs.
The AOK, based in Wilburton, is a family-owned shortline railroad that operates a route along a 118-mile corridor between McAlester and Howe at the eastern state line. The company also has a long-term lease to use track owned by Union Pacific Railroad that extends west from McAlester to Shawnee, and that links to more line into Oklahoma City.
Lately, the connection at McAlester has been inoperative because a bridge hasn’t stood up well to the rain-swollen river. The AOK has repeatedly tried to shore up the banks since the mid-1980s, Donoley said, but erosion keeps causing problems.
Business, Pages 26 on 03/24/2012