Bank of the Ozarks will report earnings
Bank of the Ozarks will report its fourth quarter and full year earnings before the market opens on Tuesday.
Management for the Little Rock bank will conduct a conference call at 10 a.m. Tuesday. Interested parties may listen to the call by dialing (844) 818-5110. A recording of the call will be available for one week by calling (855) 859-2056 and providing the passcode 7979-578.
The call also will be available live or in a recorded version on the company's website ir.bankozarks.com under "company news," then under "webcasts & transcripts."
-- David Smith
Oil tycoon Pickens to close hedge fund
DALLAS -- Legendary oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens is closing his hedge fund, saying oil trading has lost its luster.
Instead, the onetime Texas oil wildcatter wrote in a LinkedIn post that he wants to invest in "personal passions like promoting unbridled entrepreneurship and philanthropic and political endeavors."
Pickens, 89, also cited his health in the post, writing, "I'm still recovering from a series of strokes I suffered late last year, and a major fall over the summer." He added, "It's time to start making new plans and setting new priorities."
Though he achieved much of his fame for corporate takeover bids in the 1970s and 1980s, Pickens earned much of his wealth in the energy futures market after turning 75 in 2003, making billions through his Dallas-based BP Capital by correctly betting on rising prices for oil and natural gas.
Pickens joins a number of big-name hedge fund managers who have closed their doors in the past year. Andy Hall, the trader known as "God," shut his main fund in August after it slumped almost 30 percent in the first half of last year.
John Griffin of Blue Ridge Capital, Hutchin Hill Capital's Neil Chriss and Eric Mindich of Eton Park Capital Management have also called it quits.
-- Bloomberg News
Groups sue to block Louisiana pipeline
BATON ROUGE -- Environmental groups have sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a bid to block construction of a 162-mile-long crude oil pipeline across south Louisiana, including through the environmentally fragile Atchafalaya Basin river swamp.
The federal lawsuit filed Thursday claims the Corps violated the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws when it approved a permit for the Bayou Bridge Pipeline project in December.
Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners plans to build the 24-inch-wide pipeline from Lake Charles to St. James Parish, which is about 60 miles west of New Orleans. The pipeline is designed to have a maximum capacity of 480,000 barrels, or roughly 20 million gallons of crude per day.
A spokesman for the Corps' New Orleans district said Friday that he can't comment on pending litigation.
Attorneys from Earthjustice filed the suit on behalf of Sierra Club, Waterkeeper Alliance, Gulf Restoration Network, Atchafalaya Basinkeeper and the Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association-West.
-- The Associated Press
McDonald's will drop foam packaging
OAK BROOK, Ill. -- McDonald's will stop using plastic foam cups, which keep drinks icy cold but make environmentalists red hot, by the end of this year.
The world's largest restaurant operator disclosed the decision on its website, along with its plan to use recycled and certified sources for all of its fiber-based packaging by 2020.
"We also plan to eliminate foam packaging from our global system by the end of 2018," the company states on its website.
The containers for its large cold drinks represent a mere 2 percent of its packaging, which still comes out to millions of dollars and cups annually.
The decision is expected to ease tensions between McDonald's and shareholder activists, who last year pushed the Oak Brook, Ill.-based company to assess the environmental damage caused by using foam containers.
McDonald's for years has been using more environmentally friendly paper wrappings and containers, but it's taken flak for its plastic foam cups.
-- Chicago Tribune
Atlanta airport woes cost Delta $60M
ATLANTA -- Delta Air Lines racked up $60 million in losses from the combined impact of the Atlanta airport power outage and the winter storm that brought snow to the area in early December.
With its largest hub in Atlanta, Delta's finances took substantial hits last month when winter storm Benji hit the Southeast, costing the airline $20 million. Then, just over a week later, a major power outage at Hartsfield-Jackson International took a $40 million toll.
Delta chief executive Ed Bastian told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after the Dec. 17 power outage that he planned to seek reimbursement for losses from Georgia Power or the Atlanta airport.
During the 11-hour power outage at the world's busiest airport, flights were halted and tens of thousands of travelers were left stuck in dark terminals and concourses with little information about what happened and when the lights would come back on. Some passengers were stuck on planes on the tarmac for hours.
-- The New York Times
Pesticides seen to harm fish, whales
WASHINGTON -- Federal scientists have determined that a family of widely used pesticides poses a threat to dozens of endangered and threatened species, including Pacific salmon, Atlantic sturgeon and Puget Sound orcas.
The National Marine Fisheries Service issued its new biological opinion on three organophosphate pesticides -- chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion -- after a yearslong court fight by environmental groups. At the urging of pesticide manufacturers, President Donald Trump's administration had sought a two-year delay of a court-ordered deadline to issue the findings by the end of 2017, but it was unsuccessful.
The exhaustive 3,700-page federal review, dated Dec. 29, concludes that chlorpyrifos and malathion jeopardize 38 out of the 77 species under the jurisdiction of the fisheries service and that diazinon was found to jeopardize 25 of the listed species.
-- The Associated Press
Business on 01/13/2018