Fayetteville land for sale; firm stays put
A prime piece of commercial real estate on Fayetteville's Dickson Street is on the market.
Kari Larson, owner of The Common Grounds Gourmet Espresso Bar, hopes to sell the property at 412 W. Dickson St. for $1.3 million but said she has no plans to close her business.
The building is across Dickson Street from the Walton Arts Center.
"It's just an opportunity for me," she said. "Everything is always for sale."
Larson said this is Common Grounds' 18th year in business. She purchased the property for $1.2 million in 2004 through CG Ventures LLC.
The property went on the market last week, and the listing shows it sits on 0.15 acres. The property contains two buildings totaling 3,310 square feet.
-- Christie Swanson
VW brand's sales slide 4.8% in 2015
FRANKFURT, Germany -- German automaker Volkswagen said sales last year fell 4.8 percent for its flagship brand as the company struggled to overcome a scandal over cars rigged to cheat on diesel emissions testing.
Sales volume fell to 5,823,400 vehicles from 6,118,700. The scandal became known in late September, so it only could have affected figures late in the year.
The figures announced Friday don't include Volkswagen's other brands, such as Audi, SEAT and Skoda.
-- The Associated Press
Toys R Us posts Christmas-season gain
Toys R Us Inc., the world's largest toy chain, increased its same-store sales by 2 percent during the Christmas-shopping season, helped by a strong December, the company said Friday.
The gain came after declines the previous three Christmas seasons, which added to doubts about the viability of the retailer in an industry rapidly shifting to online sales. Bain Capital Partners, KKR & Co. and Vornado Realty Trust acquired the chain a decade ago in a $6.6 billion deal and have struggled to take it public again.
The Christmas season was the first under David Brandon, who became chief executive officer in July. Brandon ran Domino's Pizza Inc., another Bain-owned company, for 11 years and guided it through an initial public offering in 2004. Since joining Toys R Us, he has been revamping the management ranks, including removing the president of U.S. stores and eliminating that position.
The company was able to keep the hottest toys in stock leading up to Christmas while keeping prices competitive, Brandon said in the statement. Star Wars merchandise helped give the industry a boost.
The results "demonstrate our ability to execute our holiday plan in a highly competitive marketplace," Brandon said.
-- Bloomberg News
Wholesale stockpiles, sales decline
WASHINGTON -- U.S. wholesale businesses trimmed their stockpiles for the second straight month in November, while their sales plunged by the largest amount in 10 months.
The Commerce Department said wholesale inventories fell 0.3 percent in November after a similar 0.3 percent drop in October. Sales plunged 1 percent, which was the biggest setback since January 2015.
Economists are hoping that continued job gains will strengthen consumer spending and that businesses will respond by restocking their empty shelves in coming months. They believe that slower inventory growth in the October-December period held back economic growth in the fourth quarter.
JPMorgan Chase economists forecast the economy grew at a moderate 2 percent rate in the fourth quarter, with weaker inventory rebuilding cutting growth by about 0.3 percentage point.
-- The Associated Press
Puerto Rico sued over bond maneuvers
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Puerto Rico is facing its first lawsuit over how the U.S. territory has diverted funds to meet certain bond payments as it struggles with a worsening economic crisis.
Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla said Friday that the lawsuit filed by Assured Guaranty Ltd. and Ambac Financial Group Inc. will provoke other creditors to rush to court. The bond insurers claim that the government's move violates the U.S. Constitution.
Garcia warned that Puerto Rico does not have the legal structure to deal with such lawsuits and called on Congress to provide the island with a restructuring mechanism.
The lawsuit filed late Thursday came a week after Garcia announced that the government would default on its bond payments due this week, making $594 million in payments but not paying $37 million in interest.
-- The Associated Press
Report: London area needs million homes
London and its surrounding counties will need at least one million new homes in the next 10 years to meet demand and prevent values and rentals from spiraling higher, the Adam Smith Institute research group said in a report Friday.
Building on less than 4 percent of the city's Green Belt, the spaces around the city where development is limited, would provide the homes needed, the report said. Most of the homes could be less than 1,000 yards from a commuter train station, it said.
London is at risk of a housing bubble as real estate begins to look overvalued after house prices surged 40 percent since the beginning of 2013, UBS Group AG said in October. A rising population is also pushing up rental costs, which averaged $2,250 a month in November, more than double the amount charged in the rest of the United Kingdom, according to HomeLet, the U.K's largest reference-checking and rentals insurance company.
-- Bloomberg News
Chicken producers balk at flu vaccine
WASHINGTON -- Determined to avoid a repeat of the nation's worst-ever avian-influenza outbreak, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is stockpiling up to 500 million doses of a new vaccine -- but many in the $48 billion poultry industry don't want it.
While turkey farmers hit hard by the most recent outbreak support the shots, chicken producers say vaccinating even a portion of their flocks would prompt foreign buyers to ban imports. Last year, commercial operations in 15 states were affected by the disease, which claimed 50 million birds, mostly from egg-laying operations, and cost the industry $3.3 billion.
"As soon as you vaccinate any bird, you are telling the world bird flu is endemic, and countries are going to stop buying from us, some of them for years," said Ashley Peterson, science and technology vice president for the National Chicken Council.
U.S. poultry producers remain on edge after 67 cases of the highly contagious form of avian influenza were found in France. The U.S. outbreak, which ended in June, led to record egg prices and imports and cut turkey supplies for the Thanksgiving holiday. Most of the cases were in Minnesota, the biggest turkey-producing state, and Iowa, the biggest egg producer. Georgia, the top chicken-meat producer, was unaffected.
-- Bloomberg News
Business on 01/09/2016