The Top 10 Arkansas Business Stories of 2012: Making History

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The Top 10 Arkansas Business Stories of 2012: Making History

by Arkansas Business Staff on Monday, Dec. 24, 2012 12:00 am

1. 2012 started with great promise and ends with renewed hope for Razorbacks football. In between came personal and professional disasters off and on the field. (File photos of coaches Bobby Petrino, John L. Smith and Bret Bielema)

2. In April, Capella Healthcare of Franklin, Tenn., announced plans to buy Mercy Hot Springs, formerly St. Joseph’s Mercy Health System.

Beth Hall

3. Wal-Mart CEO Michael Duke assured shareholders that the retailer was “doing everything we can to get to the bottom” of allegations that the company had violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

4. David Wood abruptly retired as CEO of Murphy Oil Corp, months before the company announced plans to spin off its retail operations.

5. Stephen LaFrance Sr. sold USA Drug for $428 million in 2012.

6. The Arkansas General Assembly will be controlled by Republicans come 2013.

Stephanie Dunn

7. The Little Rock retailer announced in November that it would pay a one-time cash dividend of $5 per share before the end of 2012.

Mark Friedman

The Mall at Turtle Creek in Jonesboro.

Centennial Bank’s branch at 2514 N. Roosevelt Blvd. at Key West, Fla., home to $33 million in deposits, is the company’s second-largest branch in the Keys.

Schulze & Burch Biscuit Co. of Chicago, which had bought the assets of Searcy ice cream maker Yarnell’s in December 2011, resumed making the much-loved product by April.

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The most eye-catching was Joe Whisenhunt’s $19 million cash deal for 375 acres of prime improved real estate in Benton County.

The Arkansas developer picked up land mostly in the famed Billion-Dollar Mile along Interstate 540 in Rogers through a series of transactions with affiliates of Bank of America.

The property was associated with bad loans totaling $80 million to three northwest Arkansas development groups led by Bill Schwyhart, Charles Reaves and Gary Brandon.

The sell-off of Gene Cauley’s once extensive real estate portfolio also continued. Among the 2012 highlights was the sale of four Little Rock properties.

Two parts of the Bowman Plaza office-warehouse project at 4700 Col. Glenn Road, totaling 175,000 SF, were sold out of court-appointed receivership for nearly $10.2 million to a local investment group.

Pavilion in the Park, an 82,000-SF office-retail project, was sold for $4.2 million to a local investment group.

A 572,800-SF industrial facility at 7400 Scott Hamilton Drive was sold for $2.4 million to Goodwill Industries of Arkansas Inc.

During 2012, Cauley was hit with an IRS lien of $2.3 million for outstanding taxes owed from 2007. It added to the $8.7 million Cauley owes on court-ordered restitution to clients he bilked, a crime that cost his law license and sent him to federal prison.

Developer Bruce Burrow of Jonesboro filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, listing $17.27 million in debts and $14.1 million in assets. The move followed a growing line of bankers seeking money on outstanding real estate-related loans.

In tangential matters, a $96 million deal was struck to sell The Mall at Turtle Creek, a 760,000-SF retail center in Jonesboro. The buyer to be is Rouse Properties Inc., a New York real estate investment trust.

The deal freed up cash for its owners, which included Burrow and Belz Enterprises of Memphis.

Belz also put a deal in motion to free up yet more cash by selling the 18-story Peabody Little Rock. The prospective buyer of the 418-room and 22-suite hotel in downtown Little Rock is Fairwood Capital LLC of Memphis.