Texas fund invests
$9M in PB rice mill
A Fort Worth investment fund will spend $9 million to complete a $32 million expansion of a rice mill complex now underway at the Port of Pine Bluff.
Southwind Milling announced Wednesday that Luther King Capital Management will become a "strategic partner" in Southwind's project at 4215 Emmett Sanders Road in the city's Harbor Industrial District. Martin Ametrano, Southwind's director, said in a news release that the investment by Luther King will enable the company to grow even larger over the next 10 years.
Ametrano said a portion of the money will be used to refurbish a 251,000 square-foot storage building also owned by Southwind located across the street from the mill site.
He said the project is on schedule and operation of the mill will begin sometime this summer. Announced in June 2o14, the project has grown in size and is now expected to create more than 50 permanent jobs.
Luther King Capital Management, founded in 1979, manages more than $14 billion in assets.
-- Glen Chase
Costs of workers'
compensation to fall
Workers' compensation premiums for Arkansas employers will fall in the fiscal year beginning July 1, Allen Kerr, the Arkansas state insurance commissioner, said Wednesday.
The overall decrease in the voluntary market is 2.1 percent, while the overall decrease in rates for the assigned risk is 3 percent.
Despite the overall decline in premium rates, statewide premium volume has grown since the mid-1990s.
Costs today in the voluntary market are about 54 percent lower than in 1996, resulting in significant savings to Arkansas employers. Since the passage of workers' compensation legislative reform in 1993, Arkansas has seen fewer workplace accidents, a news release said.
-- David Smith
State index off 2.23,
follows market down
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, fell 2.23 to 403.10 Thursday.
"U.S. stocks ended slightly lower on Thursday amid some mixed economic reports and generally dovish commentary from the Federal Reserve," said John Blackwell, senior vice president and managing director of equity trading at Stephens Inc. in Little Rock.
P.A.M. Transportation fell 2.4 percent on low volume and USA Truck dropped 2.2 percent in average trading.
Windstream gained 1.2 percent in light trading.
Total volume of the index was 21.3 million shares.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.
Business on 04/17/2015