LITTLE ROCK — Critics’ ads target Wal-Mart contractors
Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
critic group SumOfUs.
org says it bought $6,500 worth of advertisements in Tuesday’s editions of two daily newspapers in Northwest Arkansas, The Benton County Daily Record of Bentonville and the Rogers Morning News, the day before the company hosts its annual investors conference in Rogers.
The advertisements, addressed to the retailer’s top executives, say workers in U.S. warehouses that Wal-Mart has contracts with suffer from 100-degree-plus temperatures, are “sick of poverty wages” and “sick of being injured on the job.”
The two newspapers are part of an operating alliance that includes Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
and Stephens Media.
Janna Pea, a spokesman for SumOfUs.org, said several events are planned for today outside Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville. Also, a group of workers will be present at the Embassy Suites hotel where the conference is held, she said.
Wal-Mart’s analyst meeting, beginning today at 7:45 a.m., can be accessed online via a link at stock.walmart.com/.
- Steve Painter Arvest among banks
to face stress tests
About 100 medium-size U.S. banks will have to show how prepared they are to withstand a financial crisis, under a rule adopted Tuesday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
The FDIC will require banks with between $10 billion and $50 billion in assets to conduct yearly stress tests to assess their ability to withstand possible worsening economic conditions.
Fayetteville-based Arvest Bank, with $13.6 billion in assets, is the only Arkansas-based bank with assets exceeding $10 billion. A spokesman for the bank did not return a call seeking comment.
The requirement takes effect in October 2013 and will affect about 1.3 percent of all U.S. banks.
Stress tests subject banks’ balance sheets to scenarios such as rising unemployment and falling home prices. The 19 largest U.S. banks already undergo annual stress tests.
- David Smith IMF forecast weighs
on Arkansas Index
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, dropped 2.18 to 242.94 Tuesday.
“A lower-than-expected economic-growth forecast from the International Monetary Fund stirred worries about corporate earnings resulting in a selloff,” said Bob Williams, senior vice president and managing director of DeltaTrust Investments Inc. in Little Rock.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.
Business, Pages 27 on 10/10/2012