Arkansan to lead USA Rice Federation
Lonoke County rice producer Dow Brantley has been elected to a two-year term as chairman of the USA Rice Federation and will succeed Texas rice miller Mark Denman in the post on Aug. 1.
The federation's board of directors chose Brantley at its annual meeting Monday in Dallas.
Brantley helps run a 9,000-acre family farm in central Arkansas near England where about 35 percent of the acreage is in rice. He's served on several USA Rice Federation and Arkansas Rice Federation committees, is a graduate of the Rice Leadership Development Program and is chairman of the Lonoke County Farm Bureau.
"Dow is going to make a great chairman," Denman said in a news release Tuesday. "He is an important producer in the number one rice producing state in the country, and has already begun to make his mark on the industry as the chairman of the Arkansas Rice Federation and the Arkansas Rice Farmers."
Betsy Ward, president and chief executive of the USA Rice Federation, said Brantley is inheriting a "more focused and stronger federation" through Denman's efforts as chairman.
-- Glen Chase
$13.5 million OK'd for proposed college
Sparks Health System has approved the release of $13.5 million for use by the proposed Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine in Fort Smith.
Funds come from the 2009 sale of Sparks Regional Medical Center. An additional $10 million will be released for the project in December 2015. The college is targeting a 2016 opening and will be built on land donated at Chaffee Crossing.
Kyle Parker, president and CEO of the proposed college and the Arkansas Colleges of Health Education, accepted an anonymous $14 million gift in May. A $58 million commitment from Fort Smith Regional Health Care to develop the school was announced in February.
Money for the foundation came from the 2009 sale of Sparks Regional Medical Center to Health Management Associates.
"This is another wonderful example of a community-wide effort to meet a great community need," Parker said in a news release. "This school and its mission to provide care for medically undeserved areas will be transformative for our region and state."
Dr. Kenneth A. Heiles was appointed in May as dean of the planned school. Parker was named CEO in April.
-- Chris Bahn
Resistant pigweed topic of UA field day
Soybean, cotton and corn farmers can learn more about how to deal with herbicide-resistant weeds at the Respect the Rotation Pigposium Field Day next Wednesday at the Northeast Research and Extension Center in Keiser near Osceola.
The program is sponsored by the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture and Bayer CropScience.
The Pigposium series began when row crop farmers increasingly found themselves dealing with herbicide-resistant pigweed.
"The purpose of this meeting is to talk about current control options, refining those options and discuss things that are coming in the future. You won't want to be left out of the new technology when it gets here," Bob Scott, extension weed scientist for the UA Agriculture Division, said in a release.
The field day's agenda includes a presentation on residual herbicide programs, best management practices for high yield soybean production and managing resistant weeds.
The program begins at 8 a.m. with a tour of fields starting at 9 a.m. The event includes lunch and ends at 1 p.m. Those interested in learning more or registering can go to www.bayerrespecttherotation.com.
-- Glen Chase
Credit cards boost big banks amid slump
The biggest U.S. banks, led by JPMorgan Chase & Co., are benefiting from credit cards amid a decline in mortgage lending and a trading slump.
Card revenue rose 3.1 percent to $1.55 billion in the second quarter from a year earlier, New York-based JPMorgan said Tuesday in a statement. Growth in card fees outpaced revenue gains in investment banking, lending and deposits, and mortgages for the fourth consecutive quarter, the firm said.
"Consumers are spending very strongly," said Chief Financial Officer Marianne Lake during a conference call with analysts. "It's travel, it's restaurants, it's retail -- it's across the board."
Banks are profiting as consumers globally replace cash and checks with electronic forms of payment. Credit- and debit-card transactions worldwide could jump 74 percent to $288.6 billion in 2018 from six years earlier, according to the Nilson Report, an industry newsletter. Card spending in the U.S. totaled $4.08 trillion last year, the data show.
-- Bloomberg News
German sausage firms fined $460 million
BERLIN -- Germany's antitrust authority has imposed fines totaling $460 million on 21 sausage manufacturers for colluding on prices.
The Federal Cartel Office said Tuesday that the fines also included penalties against 33 individuals. The companies punished included Nestle subsidiary Herta, as well as Meica, Boeklunder and Wiesenhof.
The Cartel Office said major sausage-makers started colluding in 2003 to push through higher prices, agreeing on price ranges for various products. It said it was tipped off by an anonymous informant. Eleven companies decided to cooperate with authorities and admit wrongdoing.
Cartel Office Chairman Andreas Mundt said the fines look high,"but they are put into perspective by the large number of companies involved, how long the cartel lasted and the billions made in revenue on the market."
-- The Associated Press
Tobacco firm to buy rival for $25 billion
RICHMOND, Va. -- Cigarette-maker Reynolds American Inc. is planning to buy rival Lorillard Inc. for about $25 billion in a deal to combine two of the nation's oldest and biggest tobacco companies.
The deal announced Tuesday would create a formidable No. 2 to rival Altria Group Inc., owner of Philip Morris USA, and will likely face scrutiny from regulators. It also could prompt a wave of consolidation in the tobacco business, shrink factories and workforces, and push prices for cigarettes higher even as smokers buy fewer of them. The companies value the deal at $27 billion including debt.
The companies said they will sell the Kool, Salem, Winston, Maverick and blu eCigs brands to Imperial Tobacco Group for $7.1 billion to ease regulatory concerns about competition. Imperial also will acquire Lorillard's manufacturing and research and development facilities in Greensboro, N.C., and about 2,900 employees. Imperial owns Bowling Green, Ky.-based Commonwealth Brands Inc., maker of USA Gold cigarettes.
The planned merger comes as demand for traditional cigarettes has declined in the face of tax increases, smoking bans, health concerns and social stigma. U.S. cigarette sales fell about 2.6 percent last year to 285 billion cigarettes, according to market researcher Euromonitor International.
-- The Associated Press
Business on 07/16/2014