Arkansas Business

America’s Car-Mart Inc.

America’s Car-Mart Inc. of Bentonville was founded by Bill Fleeman in 1981 in Rogers. The company began with one auto dealership and about 20 vehicles.

The company, which sells automobiles using a “buy-here, pay-here” model, added three more locations in 1982. By 2011, the company had more than 100 locations in eight states in the South and Midwest.

William H “Hank” Henderson, the company’s plain-spoken president and CEO, was hired by Fleeman in 1987. He’s helped lead the company through ups and downs including 2007, which he categorizes as "certainly a bad year for us," despite the fact it kept alive what is now a 30-year streak of profit-making.

The credit crisis, Great Recession and slow economic growth of the latter half of the 2000s has arguably been a boon for the company, as auto customers looked to alternative financing methods like the one America’s Car-Mart offers. At the company’s dealerships, customers can purchase a used automobile, finance it there and make payments all in one location.

In February 2012, the company’s stock reached an all-time high of more than $46 per share.