Shandong Sun Paper Industry’s decision to put a $1.3 billion pulp mill in Clark County was the most viewed story on ArkansasBusiness.com this year.
Arkansas Business had been tracking the company’s plans, officially announced April 26, since at least 2013, the same year Gov. Mike Beebe announced the $1.3 billion Big River Steel project, now wrapping up construction in Osceola.
At the time, word circulated that state and local economic developers had been working on another billion-dollar project. Arkansas Business reported in Whispers in February 2013 that Sun Paper was looking to invest in a pulp mill in Camden or Arkadelphia.
Back then, Camden was said to have an edge, with the Chinese eyeing that city’s former International Paper Co. site. But the Clark County site, just south of Arkadelphia near Gum Springs, boasted quick interstate access.
When official word finally came down in April, Gov. Asa Hutchinson called the project one of “the largest private investments in the history” of Arkansas. Sun Paper’s founder and chairman, Li Hongxin, said the bio-refinery would result in 2,000 construction jobs over a two and a half years of building, about 1,000 indirect jobs and 250 permanent jobs.
The average salary will be about $52,000.
Stories about major new economic development projects and new jobs are reliable online traffic drivers, but so are stories about prominent Arkansas sports figures. And one sports star who still commands attention is former Razorback football star Darren McFadden.
McFadden, now a running back for the Dallas Cowboys, filed a lawsuit in June against his former family friend and financial adviser, Michael Vick of Pulaski County, accusing Vick of “gross incompetence, self-dealing and outright theft” of more than $15 million.
While the alleged theft and mismanagement haven’t left McFadden bankrupt, a friend of McFadden’s told Arkansas Business Senior Editor Mark Friedman, the incident once again showed that professional athletes can be vulnerable to fraud.
“The problem of financial fraud against professional athletes is pervasive,” Laurence Landsman, a partner at the Chicago law firm Block & Landsman, told Friedman. “It happens with alarming frequency, and it is a difficult crime to detect before the money’s gone.”
Vick has denied wrongdoing. Because of McFadden’s NFL schedule, the case is scheduled to go to trial sometime between March and May 2018.
The influence of Texarkana attorney John Goodson also caught reader attention in 2016.
It was Arkansas Business — specifically Friedman — that first reported in December 2015 a questionable legal strategy used by Goodson and other attorneys involved in a class-action lawsuit against the United Services Automobile Association. While a U.S. District Court judge was pondering how to sanction Goodson and others for what the judge called “forum shopping,” Arkansas Business was also investigating Goodson’s role in getting a group of out-of-state attorneys a contract with the state auditor’s office.
Friedman’s story revealed that state Auditor Andrea Lea agreed to pay the attorneys a contingency fee nearly twice as high as other states have committed to pay in a long-odds pursuit of unredeemed U.S. Treasury bonds that belonged to Arkansans.
The law firms were introduced to Lea by Goodson, one of her campaign contributors and the husband of Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Courtney Goodson. While Goodson did not comment for the story, Lea told Friedman that Goodson’s campaign contributions didn’t play a role in her choosing the firms he recommended.
In the course of reporting the story, Arkansas Business learned that Lea repeatedly instructed staff to use private accounts to send emails about official state business to her private email address. Lea said she would implement “a new communication policy for the office to avoid any appearance of impropriety.”
Other People’s Money
Other people’s money — and how they use it — also drove clicks at ArkansasBusiness.com this year.
Friedman’s account of a legal dispute between Kristian Nelson and Mike and Gina Fullerton offered a glimpse into how the best intentions can have costly results.
The couple befriended Nelson, an ex-con, in part because they all attended the same church. The three teamed up to turn a former yoga studio on Pinnacle Valley Road into a restaurant and build an office building next door.
The deal soon collapsed; three separate suits were filed against Nelson and the construction company he worked for, alleging work on the project wasn’t done or properly completed. Meanwhile, Nelson filed liens and a civil suit against the Fullertons, alleging they used Nelson’s status as a convicted felon to keep him from getting an ownership interest in their joint business venture.
Marty Cook reported on a more successful investment: Gene Whisenhunt’s $19 million purchase of 375 undeveloped acres along Interstate 49 in Rogers in 2012.
The property had been forfeited to Bank of America as the result of $80 million in bad loans. Four years later, Whisenhunt’s bet is paying off, as development has restarted — in part because of Whisenhunt’s prescience.
“It signaled the end of the recession,” Ramsay Ball of Colliers International in Rogers said. “Those properties were stalled, and now they’re building out. They validated the region.”
Arkansas Business readers also remain fascinated by the state’s business leaders. This year, Arkansas Business unveiled a new feature profiling 10 of the state’s biggest “business icons.”
The brief overview that linked to the individual profiles of people like Warren Stephens, Johnny Allison, George Gleason and Alice Walton was not included in this year’s top 10 list. If had been, it would have been the No. 1 most visited article of the year by far.
The Full List
- Sun Paper of China Picks Clark County for $1.3B Pulp Mill — Gwen Moritz and Lance Turner
- NFL's Darren McFadden Learns Lesson From Financial Fumble — Mark Friedman
- John Goodson Helped Law Firms Get State Auditor Contract Potentially Worth Millions — Mark Friedman
- Church Friendship Collapses Along With Building Plans — Mark Friedman
- Whisenhunt’s $19M Cash Bet In Northwest Arkansas Pays Off — Marty Cook
- Pulaski County's Most Expensive Home Sales of 2015 — Mark Friedman
- Arkansas Hospitals Face Lawsuits After Refusing Insurance — Mark Friedman
- New Owners Leave Lindsey’s Resort in Familiar Hands — Alexis Hosticka
- Developer Brandon Woodrome’s $2M Fraud Seen From The Inside — Mark Friedman
- Inside New Overtime Regulations, Traps to Avoid, How to Prepare (Stuart Jackson Commentary)
Bonus: Ten Arkansas Business Icons Have Stories to Tell — Gwen Moritz