NEWS IN BRIEF

LR shopping center sold to Illinois trust

Inland Real Estate Income Trust has acquired the Park Avenue Shopping Center in Little Rock for $28.1 million, the Oak Brook, Ill., trust said Thursday.

Park Avenue is a 69,381-square-foot retail center at South University Avenue and West Markham Street on the former location of University Mall. The space is 95 percent leased and includes a Staples, Cheddar’s Casual Cafe, Panera Bread, Newk’s Eatery, Verizon Wireless and Mattress Firm.

The property consists of three single-tenant buildings, three multitenant buildings and a two-level parking garage. The acquisition also provides the right to expand one of the three buildings by up to 9,500 square feet, which would increase the center’s retail space to more than 78,000 square feet, according to the trust.

Adjacent is a Target store and an LA Fitness, neither of which were acquired. The 258 apartments in the Park Avenue Lofts complex above the retail spaces were not included in the sale.

  • David Smith

Ozarks CEO sells bank stock for $3.4 million

George Gleason, chairman and chief executive officer of Bank of the Ozarks, and his wife, Linda, a bank director, made more than $3.4 million in the sale of company stock this week, according to filings with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission.

On Monday, the couple exercised 9,656 options of Ozarks stock, buying it at $18.835 a share and selling it for $60.564 a share, a profit of a little more than $400,000.

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the couple sold 50,000 shares of stock for more than $60 a share for a total of more than $3 million.

The Gleasons still own about 3,157,000 shares of the bank’s stock valued at almost $200 million. They are the largest shareholders in the Little Rock bank. - David Smith

State index rises 0.78 as 11 stocks see jump

The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, rose 0.78 to 325.09 Thursday.

Eleven stocks in the index advanced and six declined.

Two trucking firms and a bank gained more than 3 percent.

Shares of P.A.M. Transportation were up 3.6 percent in light trading.

USA Truck climbed 3.1 percent on average volume.

Bank of the Ozarks shares rose 3.3 percent on above-average trading.

Deltic Timber fell 3.4 percent on low volume.

Volume for the index was 25.9 million shares.

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 27 on 02/28/2014

Upcoming Events