LR apartments on Scott start to go up
Site work has begun on the Scott Street Lofts, a 48-unit apartment project at 901 S. Scott St. in Little Rock by the Moses Tucker firm.
Moses Tucker President Chris Moses said the project is ahead of schedule at this point and work will begin on "bricks and mortar of the development" over the next 30-60 days. The $8 million apartment complex is to open in August of 2017.
Central Construction Group is the contractor for the development.
Approval from Little Rock's Historic District Commission was granted for the complex on May 9 after months of debate and changes to the project. Moses Tucker submitted three different proposals to the commission before it was approved.
Originally the project was to include 53 apartments, drawing criticism from commission members and the public because of its size.
-- Chris Bahn
Windstream to tell earnings at 7:30 a.m.
Windstream, a Little Rock-based company, will announce its second-quarter earnings before markets open today. A webcast announcing earnings will take place at 7:30 a.m. on Windstream's website.
The webcast can be accessed at http://abea-43pvyw.client.shareholder.com/investors/results.cfm.
Analysts expect Windstream to post a loss of 35 cents per share for the second quarter. During last year's second quarter, the company had a loss of $1.31 per share. Analysts also expect Windstream to have revenue of $1.37 billion for the 2016 second quarter.
The company on Wednesday declared its regular 15-cent-per-share dividend.
-- Stephanie Lamm
Academy Sports hires Wal-Mart exec
Michelle Gloeckler was named chief merchandising officer at Academy Sports and Outdoors on Wednesday, leaving her position as an executive vice president at Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Gloeckler, 50, also will be president of the Texas-based company's Academy International Limited, which is its global sourcing entity. She starts her new role with the company on Aug. 29.
Gloeckler spent seven years at Wal-Mart and was most recently the retailer's executive vice president for consumables, health and wellness. Gloeckler also was the retailer's lead on U.S. manufacturing, which included the company's commitment to purchase an additional $250 billion in American-made products by 2023.
In an internal memo to employees Wednesday, Wal-Mart Chief Merchandising Officer Steve Bratspies thanked Gloeckler for her "many contributions" to the company. Bratspies also told employees he will oversee Gloeckler's leadership team "as we work through this transition."
"Michelle made it a priority to build talent in Merchandising, and she's leaving a strong organization comprised of talented associates who are well positioned to manage through this change and into the future," Bratspies wrote in the internal memo.
-- Robbie Neiswanger
Icahn to close Trump Taj Mahal in N.J.
Billionaire Carl Icahn will close the Trump Taj Mahal resort in Atlantic City, N.J., citing ongoing labor strife 18 months after acquiring the one-time flagship of Donald Trump's casino empire in bankruptcy court.
The casino, once the top-grossing property in Atlantic City, will shut down after Labor Day, according to a statement Wednesday by Tony Rodio, chief executive officer of Tropicana Entertainment Inc., an Icahn-controlled company that manages the casino on behalf of owner Icahn Enterprises LP. The resort has been the subject of a summer-long strike led by Unite Here, a union that represents casino workers.
Icahn Enterprises "to date has lost almost $100 million trying to save the Taj when no other party, including the prior equity owners who put it into its recent bankruptcy, was willing to invest even one dollar to save it," Rodio said in the statement. "Currently the Taj is losing multimillions a month, and now with this strike, we see no path to profitability."
The Taj is poised to become the fifth of 12 casinos to close in Atlantic City over the past two years. Once the second-largest gambling market in the U.S. after Las Vegas, Atlantic City has been battered by competition from new casinos in Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland.
The Taj Mahal is the last casino operating under the Trump name in the city, where the developer and Republican presidential nominee once operated three properties.
-- Bloomberg News
Goldman Sachs' Fed-peek fine $36M
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to pay $36.3 million over allegations that former employees obtained confidential documents from the Federal Reserve, in a settlement that requires the bank to beef up its policies to prevent another lapse.
The Fed is also pursuing a fine and a permanent banking ban against a former Goldman Sachs managing director, Joseph Jiampietro, over his unauthorized use and disclosure of Fed secrets, according to a statement Wednesday from the agency. The Fed said Goldman Sachs' employees used confidential supervisory information in presentations to clients to try to solicit business.
Starting in 2012, Jiampietro -- an investment banker who formerly worked at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. -- received bank regulators' supervisory information that he was not authorized to have and that he used for his work at Goldman Sachs, according to the Fed.
In 2014, a Goldman Sachs banker, Rohit Bansal, allegedly shared confidential Fed documents with members of his team that Bansal got from a New York Fed employee he had previously worked with. According to an earlier $50 million settlement with the New York Department of Financial Services, Bansal obtained about 35 documents on about 20 occasions from his friend Jason Gross, who was still a New York Fed employee.
"Upon discovering that Rohit Bansal had improperly obtained information from his former employer, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, we immediately notified regulators, including the Federal Reserve," Michael DuVally, a Goldman Sachs spokesman, said in a statement Wednesday.
-- Bloomberg News
Business on 08/04/2016