Business news in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The multimillion-dollar buyers have different drivers and concerns than buyers in the lower-price categories. When you get to $2 million or above, it has more to do with IPOs and where the wealthy want to park their excess cash.”

Andrew LePage, DataQuick senior analyst Article, 1D

Trip planned to lure Czech businesses

The Arkansas Economic Development Commission is planning a trip to the Czech Republic in the summer to recruit more firearms-focused businesses to the state.

Scott Hardin, a spokesman with the commission, said Friday that plans are to expand a trip to the Farnborough International Airshow in England in mid-July to include a trip to the Czech Republic. He noted the area includes a growing firearms-accessory industry, and some businesses might be enticed to move some operations to Arkansas.

Hardin said there were no plans yet as to what companies will be visited. Well-known Czech firearms companies include pistol-maker Ceska Zbrojovka a.s. Uhersky Brod, which imports its products through Kansas City, Kan.-based CZ-USA and Sellier and Bellot, which is part of the CBC Group, one of the largest small-arms ammunition-makers in the world.

“We feel like we have a good base,” Hardin said of the state’s existing industry.

Arkansas’ firearms industry includes makers of custom guns Nighthawk Custom and Wilson Combat, both of Berryville, along with North Carolina-based Remington Arms Company, which is expanding its ammunition plant in Lonoke.

Recently, Fort Smith has become home to three companies with ties to the industry. Airgun-maker Umarex USA moved to the city in 2010. In 2012, Walther Arms, the U.S. unit of German gun-maker Carl Walther GmbH, moved its headquarters there. Both companies are owned by Arnsberg, Germany based PW Group and share space in the Chaffee Crossing development. In September, Thermold Magazines, which makes firearms products and accessories, said it was moving its headquarters to Fort Smith from North Carolina.

UA announces new patent database

The University of Arkansas and the University of Arkansas System of Agriculture have a new patent database that interested people can use to examine or research patents the institutions hold.

The UA helps faculty and research scientists identify, protect and commercialize intellectual property developed from their research, according to a release Friday. The database was developed by the University Libraries and can be found on the UARKive website in the UARKive Collections section.

“Our land-grant mission is based on transferring useful knowledge from the university to the world and patenting is one way to accomplish that transfer,” said Lisa C. Childs, assistant vice president for technology commercialization for the University Division of Agriculture. “I am delighted that the University Libraries have made more than 35 years of that history accessible.”

The database covers 1976 through the present, and patents can be searched by several methods, including author, keyword, patent title and department.

• John Magsam

Fed says high-speed trades may be risky

Faster and less transparent markets pose risks that require more study, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, which said high-speed trading may create dangers that aren’t properly appreciated or policed.

In a document posted on the Chicago Fed website, senior policy adviser Carol Clark highlighted questions for policymakers and regulators to consider, including how to oversee trading that’s spread across different asset classes across the world and whether rule makers have adequate technology and systems in place to oversee markets.

“The factors that have contributed to the adoption of high speed trading and affected market structure in recent years include competition, technology and regulation,” Clark wrote.

“The unexpected ways in which these dynamic forces are coming together raise a number of important policy issues.”

The Fed is the latest voice to join the debate about whether the $22 trillion U.S. equity market is organized appropriately. In December, the U.S. Treasury said high-speed trading is among the American financial system’s vulnerabilities.

High-speed firms that measure their trading in microseconds or less have largely supplanted people during the past decade.

U.S. energy rigs decline by 7 for week Rigs targeting oil and natural gas in the U.S. declined by seven this week to 1,764, according to Baker Hughes Inc.

Oil rigs increased by seven to 1,423, the most since August 2012, data posted on the company’s website show. The gas count dropped by 14 to 337, the lowest level since 1995, the Houston-based field services company said.

The total rig count has fallen by 21 this month as a series of storms dumped snow and ice on the Gulf Coast and the eastern U.S., slowing oil- and gas-drilling operations in major plays.

U.S. oil output climbed for the first time in four weeks in the seven days that ended Feb. 7, increasing 1.1 percent to 8.13 million barrels a day, the Energy Information Administration said. Crude stockpiles rose 3.27 million barrels to 361.4 million.

U.S. gas stockpiles tumbled 237 billion cubic feet last week to 1.686 trillion, the agency said, as winter weather spurred demand for the heating fuel. Supplies were a record 27 percent below the five-year average and 34 percent below year-earlier levels.

• Bloomberg News

Tennessee auto workers reject union

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - Workers at a Volkswagen factory in Tennessee have voted against union representation, derailing the United Auto Workers union’s effort to organize Southern factories.

The 712-626 vote released late Friday stunned many labor experts who expected a union win because Volkswagen tacitly endorsed the union and even allowed organizers into the Chattanooga factory to make sales pitches.

The union for decades has tried without success to organize a foreign-owned plant in a region that’s wary of organized labor. The loss likely makes it even harder for the union to recruit members at another Southern factory.

“While we certainly would have liked a victory for workers here, we deeply respect the Volkswagen Global Group Works Council, Volkswagen management and IG Metall for doing their best to create a free and open atmosphere for workers to exercise their basic human right to form a union,” union President Bob King said in a statement.