Walmart employee event set for June
Walmart Inc. will hold its annual employee celebration on June 7 at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, the company said Friday.
Its formal business meeting is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. June 5, and will once again be held in a virtual format.
Walmart said the meeting will focus on voting on formal business and proxy proposals.
Shareholders of record as of April 12 are entitled to vote.
They may cast their votes online, by mail or by phone. They may also vote online during the meeting.
The Bentonville-based retailer said it will release its proxy statement later this month. It will contain specific instructions on how shareholders may cast their votes.
The public will also be able to listen to the meeting through a link on the company's website, but without the option to vote.
Walmart's traditional Friday Associates Celebration will start at 8 a.m. The event typically attracts thousands of Walmart employees from around the world to Northwest Arkansas.
Company executives will honor employees from around the world. The event features well-known entertainers and messages from Walmart executives.
-- Serenah McKay
4 Walmart centers test robotic forklifts
Walmart is testing robotic forklifts at four of its high-tech distribution centers, the company said this week.
After a 16-month trial of the autonomous forklifts at a distribution center in Brooksville, Fla., the company is putting a total of 19 there and in three other centers for more testing. Walmart said it could deploy them in even more centers as it evaluates their benefits to employees and business operations.
The other test centers are in Texas, New York and Alabama.
Made by Fox Robotics of Austin, Texas, the forklifts unload pallets of merchandise from trucks that arrive at the warehouse loading docks.
The FoxBots will help fully automate the loading docks, Walmart said, and complement the distribution centers' automated storage and retrieval systems.
After unloading the trucks, the forklifts ferry the pallets to the automated storage and retrieval system, where they are cataloged and stored.
The FoxBots are working so well that Walmart Inc. has invested growth capital for a minority stake in Fox Robotics, said Maurice Gray, general manager of the Florida distribution center.
-- Serenah McKay
State index closes 12.91 points lower
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, closed Friday at 898.91, down 12.91 points.
Shares of America's Car-Mart and P.A.M. Transportation Services both fell 4%. Dillard's Inc. shares fell 2.6%.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.