Alltel's wireless buy tops list of deals. (Biggest Deals 2002).

DEALS IN ARKANSAS LAST year, like those nationwide, were fewer and smaller than in the preceding years.

Atop the 2002 list is Alltel Corp.'s $1.65 billion purchase of CenturyTel Inc.'s wireless operations, followed immediately by two deals to finance its acquisitions: an issue of equity and one of debt.

If trend toward smaller deals continues, Alltel's sale this month of part of its Alltel Information Services to Fidelity National Financial Corp. for $1.05 billion gives it an edge up on next year's list.

Alltel had been attempting for months to buy all of CenturyTel, offering $9 billion for the Monroe, La., telephone company. Although CenturyTel balked at the prospect of selling the entire company, the two kept talking and in March struck the wireless deal.

Alltel gained more than 700,000 wireless customers from CenturyTel, and the deal expands Alltel's wireless coverage area into new markets in Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Texas and Wisconsin.

With the deal, Alltel said it had 7.4 million wireless customers in 24 states. About 1,100 CenturyTel wireless employees were transferred to Alltel.

The deal also includes minority partnership interests in cellular operations of 2 million POPs, or potential customers, and PCS licenses covering 1.3 million POPs in Wisconsin and Iowa.

In August, Alltel agreed to buy a minority-owned market from CenturyTel that had not been part of the larger deal because of federal regulations. Alltel said it would pay $68 million, and it is included in the list at No. 11, but the deal is still pending because the Federal Communications Commission first must waive the cross-ownership restriction, according. to a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Alltel said at the time it announced the deal that it would finance the deal through a combination of debt and equity or equity-linked securities with the goal of maintaining its "A/A2" credit rating.

In April, the company offered $1.25 billion in publicly traded equity units to help pay for its acquisitions. In June, Alltel offered senior notes with a principal amount of $1.5 billion.

Alltel agreed to buy wireless properties in southern Mississippi from Cellular XL Associates, a privately held company based in Hattiesburg, Miss., in November.

Terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but it's expected to add about 50,000 wireless customers to the Alltel network.

The properties operate as Cellular One in the Mississippi areas of Hattiesburg, Laurel and Picayune, serving a population of about 360,000 in 12 counties.

Wal-Mart Deals

In March, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. signed an agreement that marked its first entrance into Japan.

The world's largest company paid $46 million to become a 6.1 percent stakeholder in The Seiyu Ltd., a Japanese retail chain-with more than $8 billion in sales. Seiyu, with more than 400 stores in Japan, focuses primarily on supermarkets and general merchandising.

Under the agreement, Wal-Mart could inject up to $2 billion of new equity into Seiyu, raising its stake up to 66.7 percent over time.

Late in the year, in December, Wal-Mart exercised the first of its options, increasing its stake in Seiyu to more than 34 percent. Wal-Mart paid $420 million to make it Seiyu's largest single shareholder.

Wal-Mart said it decided to exercise the first warrant after completing an intensive, in-depth feasibility study of Seiyu operations and the Japanese retail market that began in July.

"Our studies have convinced us that Seiyu has the potential to grow and become more profitable for its stake-holders, while at the same time offering clear benefits for the Japanese consumer, such as those delivered by the Wal-Mart everyday -low price strategy," said John Menzer, president and CEO of WalMart's international unit.

Other Deals

Once you get past the really large deals, there was a lot of buying and selling, but for smaller amounts than in years past.

For instance, John Q. Hammons is putting up a $35 million, 252-room, nine-story Embassy Suites Hotel at Hot Springs next to the 360,000-SF Hot Springs Convention Center.

Hammons also is building another 248-room, nine-story Embassy Suites hotel and convention center at Rogers. The entire project is worth about $40 million.

In November, Acxiom Corp. said it closed several long-term deals worth a total of $85 million with several blue-chip companies. Included in the deals were IBM, Bank of America Corp., MasterCard International, General Motors Corp., Sun Microsystems, Pfizer Inc., Circuit City Stores Inc., Time-Life Inc. and CUNA Mutual Group.

In the company's second quarter it signed deals, but didn't disclose any terms, with Volkswagen of America and Southeast Toyota Distributors LLC and renewed an agreement with The GM Card. It also expanded or renewed agreements with Unilever, Bank One NA, Ameritrade Inc. and CDW Computer Centers Inc.

In its first quarter, Acxiom inked deals, again with no disclosure of terms, with Charles Schwab & Co., Staples Inc., Sun Microsystems, Gateway Inc., Reiman Publications, Primedia Inc. and Groupe Danone (Dannon). -Other deals included Microsoft Corp., E* Trade Group and - Canadian Tire Financial Services, MGM Mirage, Jet Blue Airways Corp., Travelocity.com and The Broadmoor.

Dillard's Inc. sold its 50 percent share of a regional mall in Colorado in December. The sell of Flatiron Crossing at Broomfield brought $68.5 million into the company coffers.

The sale did nor include the company's store in the mall, which Dillard's will continue to operate as an anchor tenant.

Tyson Foods Inc., the giant of the chicken, beef and pork world, rang up several deals, getting rid of properties that came with its huge merger with IBP Inc. No terms were released on any of the deals.

In September, Tyson agreed to sell its Specialty Brands frozen foods unit, which is based in Ontario, Calif., to Fremont Partners, a San Francisco-based private equity firm. Specialty Brands had sales of about $300 million in 2001. Although no terms were disclosed, in April it was estimated that its assets might be worth $100 million-$200 million.

Tyson decided in May to sell one of its two Mallard's Foods processing plants at Modesto, Calif., to Michael Angelo's Gourmet Foods Inc. of Austin, Texas.

On the acquisition side, Tyson bought a bacon processing plant at Omaha, Neb., from Millard Refrigerated Services.

The plant, which employs 600, has been used primarily in co-packing smoked bacon for private brands for retail and food service.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. announced the pricing of a public offering in May of 5.1 million shares of common stock at $26 a share--$132.6 million.

In November, the large publicly traded trucking company said it would buy a portion of Werner Enterprises Inc.'s ownership in. Dallas-based Transplace. Hunt bought an additional 10.28 percent equity interest in Transplace, leaving Werner with 5 percent ownership in the logistics operation. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

November also brought news that Hunt signed a pact with Freightliner LLC in which Hunt would buy about 2,100 tractors in a one-for-one trade-in of older trucks. Most of the trucks will be delivered during the first half of this year. Again, no terms were disclosed.

Afco Steel of Little Rock was sold in August to W&W Steel Co. of Oklahoma City. Although financial terms weren't disclosed, sources put the price at about $60 million.

Around since 1909, Afco employs 372 production workers at its two Little Rock plants and 175 at two wholly owned subsidiaries: Van Buren Bridge Co. in Van Buren, 100; and Platte River Steel Co. in Greeley, Colo., 75.

Central Flying Service continued to grow, buying the Midcoast Aviation facility at Little Rock from Sabreliner Corp. of St. Louis. No terms were released, but adding Midcoast Aviation's executive terminal, nine aircraft hangar buildings and maintenance and paint facilities makes Central Flying Service the largest full-service, fixed-based operation in the world.

Central now operates 20 aircraft hangars and two executive terminals--a total of 525,000 SE Aircraft maintenance capacity doubled with the deal.

For real estate deals, none could match the four west Little Rock apartment projects that combined for a $38 million transaction.

The projects involved the 337-unit Foxrun, the 252-unit Walnut Ridge, the 239-unit Green Forest-and the 211-unit Williamsburg apartments.

GDLR LLC, led by Jordan Stone, bought the Greenwood Forest and Williamsburg Square projects for $16.4 million. FRLR LLC, also led by Stone, purchased Foxrun for $13.6 million. A third Norfolk, Va.-based limited liability company (WRLR LLC, once again led by Stone), acquired Walnut Ridge for $8 million. The seller in all three deals was Walnut Ridge Associates LLC of Atlanta.

A 497,200-SF warehouse at Maumelle was bought by Scholastic Distributions Services Inc. from Warmack-Warehouse Ltd. of Texarkana in a $14.1 million deal.

Scholastic said it plans to invest a similar amount in converting it into a regional distribution center.

RELATED ARTICLE: Deals Down Across Country.

NATION WIDE, ACCORDING to Mergerstat, the disclosed dollar value on transactions saw a sharp decline in 2002 compared to that of recent years--$441.3 billion. In 2001 that figure was $683 billion. In the entire country last year there were just 68 deals worth more than $1 billion, compared to 119 in 2001.

A few other gleanings from the Mergerstat report:

* Cash was the payment of choice in 2002.

* The number of private company agreements, the main engine of M&A activity, fell by 18.5 percent.

* The number of- public company deals dropped by 24.9 percent.

* The number of unit divestitures slowed by 8.1 percent in 2002.