Business news in brief

FILE - In this Nov. 27, 2017, file photo, Leandra English, who was elevated to interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by its outgoing director, attends a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington. English, the deputy director of CFPB who unsuccessfully sued President Donald Trump for control of the consumer watchdog agency, said Friday, July 6, 2018, she plans to resign next week. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - In this Nov. 27, 2017, file photo, Leandra English, who was elevated to interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by its outgoing director, attends a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington. English, the deputy director of CFPB who unsuccessfully sued President Donald Trump for control of the consumer watchdog agency, said Friday, July 6, 2018, she plans to resign next week. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Timber firm asks LR to annex 180 acres

The timber company behind the Chenal residential and commercial subdivisions in west Little Rock has asked the city to annex another 180 acres for a new development.

PotlatchDeltic Corp. has not submitted development documents for the woods north of Kanis Road and west of Iron Horse Road, but city officials in a report on the annexation request noted the company is developing a single-family subdivision within the city adjacent to the site at a density of about 3.5 lots per acre.

The report was referring to the Wildwood Place subdivision on the south side of Denny Road and southeast of the Wildwood Center for the Performing Arts, said Walter Malone, the city planning manager.

The 180 acres is within Little Rock's extraterritorial reach and is zoned R-2, single family. That zoning has a minimum lot size of 7,000 square feet, the report said.

The annexation request, which would allow the property to obtain city services such as sewer and water, is scheduled to go before the Little Rock Planning Commission on Thursday. The staff has yet to make its recommendation, the report said.

Deltic Timber Corp. of El Dorado, which was behind the Chenal development for 30 years, merged with Potlatch Corp. of Spokane, Wash., earlier this year.

-- Noel Oman

Official to resign after failed Trump suit

NEW YORK -- Leandra English, the deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau who unsuccessfully sued President Donald Trump for control of the consumer watchdog agency, said Friday that she plans to resign next week.

English was the chief of staff for Richard Cordray, President Barack Obama's director of the bureau. She was promoted to deputy director shortly before Cordray resigned in late November. Citing the law that created the bureau, English and Cordray both argued that she would become the acting director of the bureau.

Trump, citing long-standing laws over presidential appointees, named his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, as acting director of the bureau. It created a standoff between the White House and the bureau, and it was unclear for several days who was actually in charge of the bureau.

English quickly sued to block Mulvaney's appointment, but federal judges repeatedly ruled that Trump had the power to appoint whom he wanted to federal agencies.

-- The Associated Press

Sheriff's office gets Simmons Bank gift

Simmons Bank donated $25,000 to the Jefferson County sheriff's office to purchase furniture and fixtures for the newly constructed addition to the county jail, the Pine Bluff bank said Friday.

"Simmons Bank shares a special connection to Jefferson County," said Daniel Robinson, Pine Bluff community president at Simmons Bank. "Few people do more for our county community than the sheriff and deputies, and this gift is Simmons' way of saying thank you."

Simmons Bank is an Arkansas state-chartered bank that began as a community bank in Pine Bluff in 1903. It has $15.6 billion in assets with 200 branches in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.

-- David Smith

Court OKs review of VW's diesel papers

BERLIN -- Germany's highest court says investigators can examine internal documents seized last year from automaker Volkswagen as part of investigations into an ongoing diesel emissions scandal.

The Federal Constitutional Court on Friday dismissed a legal complaint from Volkswagen seeking to block authorities from using the documents for their investigation.

Volkswagen has been embroiled in a scandal involving its diesel vehicles since 2015, when U.S. authorities revealed the company had used engine software to cheat on emissions tests.

Volkswagen recently paid a $1.2 billion fine after German prosecutors concluded the company failed to properly oversee its engine development department.

The scandal has also already cost Volkswagen $20 billion in fines and civil settlements in the United States.

-- The Associated Press

Speaker pioneer Sonos will go public

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- Wireless speaker maker Sonos filed for a U.S. initial public offering.

The company filed with an offering size of $100 million, a placeholder amount used to calculate fees that is likely to change. It plans to list on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol SONO, according to a regulatory filing Friday.

Sonos, a pioneer in the market for Internet-connected speakers, is targeting a valuation of $2.5 billion to $3 billion in the initial public offering, said people familiar with the matter in April, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private.

While the industry around wireless speakers is booming, competition has increased since Sonos introduced its first home-audio system in 2005. The company cites an "extremely competitive and rapidly evolving" market among risk factors in its initial public offering, naming Bang & Olufsen A/S, Bose and Samsung among its main rivals, alongside newer entrants Amazon, Apple and Alphabet's Google.

-- Bloomberg News

Investment firms' collections plummet

VALLEY FORGE, Pa. -- Vanguard Group is attracting a lot less money from investors this year compared with 2017. It turns out, the mutual fund giant's not alone.

Vanguard, the world's second-largest money manager, collected $138 billion in the first half of 2018, down from $237 billion in the same period a year ago, according to the firm. That's a decline of 42 percent. By comparison, total U.S. fund flows -- money going into exchange-traded, active and passive mutual funds -- fell roughly 50 percent, according to Bloomberg estimates.

"At first glance it looks like Vanguard is having an off-year, but relatively speaking their dominance is still intact," said Eric Balchunas, senior exchange-traded fund analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.

The reason for the drop-off in overall flows? The so-so performance of the stock market, said Balchunas, who points out that there is a strong correlation between market returns and fund flows.

-- Bloomberg News

Business on 07/07/2018

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