LR's Windstream finishes its reverse split
Windstream Holdings completed a 1-for-5 reverse stock split after the market closed Friday, the Little Rock provider of network communications said.
Windstream previously had approved the reverse split at its annual meeting Monday.
As a result, the total shares outstanding decreased from about 200 million to approximately 40 million.
The share price will increase by a factor of 5, said David Avery, spokesman for Windstream.
"So the value of the shareholder's investment does not change," Avery said.
Windstream closed at $1.23 a share on Friday, down 11 cents or 8.2 percent in trading on the Nasdaq exchange. Windstream's stock hit a 52-week low of $1.22 during trading on Friday.
Windstream's stock will open on Tuesday morning trading for about $6.15 a share.
Windstream last had a reverse stock split in 2015 when it completed the spinoff of Uniti Group.
-- David Smith
Car-Mart director sells stock for $1.4M
A director for Bentonville-based America's Car-Mart exercised certain stock options and then sold the shares recently, clearing $589,000, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Robert Cameron Smith, an independent director with the buy-here-pay-here auto dealer, exercised options to acquire 22,500 shares at various prices and a cost of $810,950 on Tuesday. He then sold the shares at $62.26, reaping $1,400,850. He still directly owns 3,550 shares of company stock, according to the filing.
Smith has been on the Car-Mart board of directors since 2009. He's the founder and president of Cameron Smith and Associates, Inc., a Bentonville executive-recruiting firm, according to the Car-Mart investor relations Web page.
Car-Mart on Monday reported a profit of $10.2 million or $1.43 per share for its fiscal fourth quarter compared with $5.2 million or 66 cents per share a year ago. A consensus of four analysts predicted a profit of 98 cents per share for the period. Revenue was $169.5 million for the fourth quarter, compared with $152.9 million a year ago.
-- John Magsam
Again, worker visas bumped up by 15,000
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that it will issue 15,000 additional guest-worker visas for 2018, facing an outcry from business owners who say they're being hurt by the country's labor squeeze.
It was the second year in a row that the department agreed to allocate an extra 15,000 guest-worker visas, on top of the 66,000 annual cap established by Congress. Lawmakers have granted the Homeland Security Department the authority to exceed the cap, and in recent weeks they have urged Kirstjen Nielsen, Homeland Security secretary, to allow more foreigners to alleviate the tight labor market, with the unemployment rate at 3.9 percent.
The H-2B visas are for foreigners who take seasonal jobs in seafood, tourism, landscaping, construction and others industries -- but not farmworkers. Critics of the guest-worker program say such jobs should pay more, in order to attract more teenagers and American workers who have dropped out of the labor force.
In a statement, the department said Nielsen determined there were not enough "qualified, U.S. workers available ... to satisfy the needs of American businesses."
"The limitations on H-2B visas were originally meant to protect American workers, but when we enter a situation where the program unintentionally harms American businesses it needs to be reformed," said Nielsen, whose statement urged lawmakers to pass legislation to establish an appropriate number of seasonal visas.
"We are once again in a situation where Congress has passed the buck and turned a decision over to [the Homeland Security Department]," her statement said.
-- The Washington Post
Trump curbs federal workers' protections
President Donald Trump on Friday signed a series of executive orders making it easier to fire federal government workers and rolling back the prerogatives of unions that represent them.
Andrew Bremberg, the head of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said the president was "fulfilling his promise to promote more efficient government by reforming our civil service rules."
But the push also reflects conservatives' long-running suspicion of the federal bureaucracy. Shortly after Trump took office, Steve Bannon, then his chief strategist, called for "the deconstruction of the administrative state."
Unions representing government workers were quick to denounce the actions, calling them an "assault on democracy," in the words of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, which represents 700,000 workers.
Experts on the civil service said the moves represented the next stage of an effort that Republican politicians and conservative activists had led in states like Wisconsin and Michigan throughout this decade.
-- The New York Times
Tesla found to speed up before Utah crash
SALT LAKE CITY -- A Tesla that crashed May 11 while in Autopilot mode in Utah accelerated in the seconds before it smashed into a stopped firetruck, according to a police report. Two people were injured.
Data from the Model S electric vehicle show it picked up speed for 3.5 seconds before crashing into the firetruck in suburban Salt Lake City, the report said. The driver hit the brakes a fraction of a second before impact.
Police suggested that the car was following another vehicle and dropped its speed to 55 mph to match the leading vehicle. They say the leading vehicle then likely changed lanes and the Tesla automatically sped up to its preset speed of 60 mph without noticing the stopped cars ahead.
The driver of the vehicle, Heather Lommatzsch, 29, told police she thought the vehicle's automatic emergency braking system would detect traffic and stop before the car hit another vehicle.
-- The Associated Press
Business on 05/26/2018