The Batesville Daily Guard, which had been owned by the same family nearly 90 years, has been sold to Paxton Media Group of Paducah, Ky., for an undisclosed price.
The newspaper, which was owned by members of the O.E. Jones family, announced the sale on the front page of Friday's editions under the headline, "Changing of the Guard."
The Daily Guard becomes the fifth Arkansas newspaper among three dozen in the Paxton portfolio. The other Arkansas properties owned by the privately held media company include The Sun in Jonesboro, The Daily Citizen in Searcy, The Daily Press in Paragould and The Courier in Russellville.
The sale was announced two weeks after a member of the Jones family, Pat Jones, retired as the newspaper's general manager. Her husband, Dr. O.E. Jones, publisher and part owner of the newspaper and a retired dentist, died in January.
Paxton already has begun printing the Daily Guard in Jonesboro, where it already prints three papers, said David Mosesso, a Paxton executive based in Jonesboro.
"That is one of the opportunities you have to reduce your operating costs, which is obviously necessary in today's newspaper environment," he said.
-- Noel Oman
Bayer to close Monsanto deal Thursday
BERLIN -- German pharmaceutical company Bayer AG said Monday that it plans to complete its purchase of U.S. seed and weedkiller maker Monsanto Co. this week after receiving all the required approvals from regulators.
Bayer said in a statement that it plans to complete the acquisition on Thursday.
The deal will cost some $63 billion including debt. To obtain regulatory approval, Bayer has committed to divest some businesses, agreeing among other things to the U.S. government's demand that it sell about $9 billion in agriculture activities.
Bayer will become Monsanto's sole shareholder Thursday. The company said that, according to the terms of the U.S. approval, it can integrate Monsanto as soon as divestments to Germany's BASF demanded by regulators have been completed. That is expected to take about two months.
Bayer said that, following the takeover, "Monsanto will no longer be a company name."
San Francisco-based Twitter will replace Monsanto in the S&P 500, a benchmark index of the U.S. stock market.
S&P Dow Jones Indices says the change will become effective prior to the open of trading on Thursday.
Netflix will replace Monsanto on the S&P 100, a subset of the S&P 500 for some of the largest companies.
-- Bloomberg News
Dedman AT&T Arkansas' new president
Ronald Dedman, a native of Tuckerman and an AT&T employee for 40 years, is now president of AT&T Arkansas, the telecommunications company said Monday.
Dedman replaces Ed Drilling, who served since 2013 in a dual role as Arkansas president and senior vice president of AT&T national regulatory external affairs, managing state regulation for the company nationwide. Drilling will now focus fulltime on the national organization, a spokesman said.
Dedman will lead all external, government and public affairs efforts in Arkansas.
Dedman started as a summer intern for then-Southwestern Bell. He worked as a directory assistance operator while attending college at Arkansas State University.
He also has worked in the areas of operator services and marketing within the company before joining AT&T's external affairs team as a director in 1995.
-- David Smith
Zips Car Wash buys Georgia operation
Little Rock-based Zips Car Wash has purchased Georgia-based carwash operation, bringing the company's total location count to 122.
Zips has acquired Four Seasons Car Wash, which includes seven stores in Georgia and South Carolina, according to a Monday news release. The terms of the deal were not made public.
Zips plans additional growth in 2018. The company was founded in 2004 with just two locations in Arkansas. It has doubled in size over the last year and a half, from 62 to 122 stores.
Zips operates drive-through carwashes in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee.
-- John Magsam
Starbucks exec Schultz stepping down
NEW YORK — Starbucks Corp. says Howard Schultz is stepping down as executive chairman this month of the coffee chain he joined more than 30 years ago.
Schultz, who oversaw the transformation of Starbucks into a global chain with more than 28,000 locations, had left the CEO job at the company last year to focus on innovation and social impact projects.
The Seattle-based chain says Schultz will take the title of chairman emeritus as of June 26, and is writing a book about Starbucks’ social impact efforts.
“Starbucks changed the way millions of people drink coffee, this is true, but we also changed people’s lives in communities around the world for the better,” Schultz said in a letter to Starbucks employees.
Schultz said he was considering “a range of options for myself, from philanthropy to public service,” but wasn’t sure what the future would hold. He had endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton before the last presidential election and had sometimes deflected questions about whether he would run for office.
He had often aligned himself and Starbucks with social issues like race and jobs for underprivileged youth — even when those efforts fell flat, like the “Race Together” campaign that encourage workers to talk about race with customers.
— The Associated Press
Business on 06/05/2018