Trucking unit's chief quits at USA Truck
Martin Tewari, president of USA Truck's trucking segment, has resigned, according to a filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Tewari joined the Van Buren truckload and brokerage company in September 2015 with more than 25 years of experience in the industry. His 2015 compensation totaled about $875,000 including salary, bonuses, stocks and option awards. Much of the compensation for USA Truck executives is tied to various performance targets, some of which stretch through 2021.
USA Truck has not made a profit in a year, primarily because its trucking segment posted nearly $15 million in losses in 2016, more than reversing its $11 million profit of 2015.
The company has begun a search for Tewari's replacement. It also has been interviewing candidates to fill the chief financial officer position, which was left vacant when James Reed stepped up as CEO in January.
Requests for comment from company leaders were declined.
-- Emma N. Hurt
LR exec honored by small-business hub
Victoria Washington, president of Vision Information Technology Consultants in Little Rock, is Arkansas' small-business person of the year, the U.S. Small Business Administration said.
Washington and 53 other winners from states and territories have been invited to Washington, D.C., for the awards ceremony April 30-May 1. Washington also will be recognized May 4 during a luncheon sponsored by the state Small Business Administration.
Also called Vision IT, Washington's company provides professional information technology consulting and products to the federal government.
-- Stephen Steed
U.S. 30-year mortgage rate rises to 4.3%
WASHINGTON -- Long-term U.S. mortgage rates rose this week for a second straight week, posting new highs for the year. The markets were anticipating an increase in a key interest rate by the Federal Reserve, which the Fed announced Wednesday.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., said Thursday that the rate on 30-year, fixed-rate loans climbed to 4.3 percent from 4.21 percent last week. The benchmark rate stood at 3.73 percent a year ago and averaged 3.65 percent through 2016, the lowest level in records dating to 1971.
The rate on 15-year mortgages increased to 3.50 percent from 3.42 percent last week.
The Fed's move marked the second time in three months that the central bank has raised its benchmark interest rate.
To calculate average mortgage rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country between Monday and Wednesday each week. The average doesn't include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.
The average fee for a 30-year mortgage was unchanged this week at 0.5 point. The fee on 15-year loans also remained at 0.5 point.
-- The Associated Press
In February, housing starts grow 3%
WASHINGTON -- U.S. builders broke ground on new homes at a faster pace in February, a sign that developers expect solid sales growth this year despite higher mortgage rates.
Housing starts rose 3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.3 million, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Almost all of those gains came from the construction of single-family houses, which rose 6.5 percent. Construction of apartment buildings fell 7.7 percent in February.
More Americans are looking to purchase homes as the job market has improved, but the supply of properties for sale has been relatively low even with additional construction. The increase in construction starts points to greater sales this year even though mortgage rates have climbed from recent lows, making monthly housing payments higher and hurting affordability.
Housing starts are running 7.5 percent higher than they were during the first two months of 2016. Builders last year started the most new homes since 2007, the year the recession began as the housing market began to teeter.
Construction surged last month in the West, offsetting declines in the Northeast, Midwest and South that were largely caused by a decline in apartment building starts.
-- The Associated Press
U.N. warns of piracy in Somali waters
The hijacking of a fuel tanker off Somalia's coast shows the threat still posed by pirates to one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, a risk that may also hamper the Horn of African country's efforts to explore for offshore oil and gas, a United Nations official said.
"This is absolutely a return of piracy," Alan Cole, head of the U.N.'s Global Maritime Crime Program, said of the Monday hijacking of the Aris 13 freighter in waters off Somalia's semiautonomous Puntland region.
The tanker was the first ship seized off the Eastern Africa seaboard in five years. Hijackings in the region caused havoc for international shipping from about 2001 to 2012, peaking with 176 attacks in 2011. They declined in part because of actions by the European Union's anti-piracy mission.
Somalia, trying to emerge from decades of civil war and defeat al-Qaida-linked militants, is seeking to encourage foreign companies to explore for oil and gas in its waters. Piracy would be a "setback" in the government's efforts, Cole said Thursday in a phone interview from Nairobi, the capital of neighboring Kenya.
Somalia's government is keen for companies such as Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP PLC to return and resume exploration for what it says are probable offshore hydrocarbon deposits. The state has held talks with those companies about reactivating dormant contracts.
-- Bloomberg News
Business on 03/17/2017