Wal-Mart/Asda Deal Eclipses All Others in '99.

THE BIGGEST DEAL involving an Arkansas company in 1999 was twice as big as the biggest deals of 1998 and 1997 put together.

It was more than 12 times bigger than the next biggest unrelated deal.

While it can't hold a candle to deals like America Online-Time Warner, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s $10.7 billion purchase of Asda Group Plc was by far the biggest deal ever in Arkansas. And the issuance of $5.75 billion in company bonds to help pay for the cash purchase was the second biggest.

Asda Group is a chain of more than 230 discount stores in Great Britain that had operated on a distinctly Waltonian business strategy. The fit between the two companies has been remarkably smooth.

"David Glass thinks we're more like Wal-Mart than Wal-Mart," Allan Leighton, chief executive officer of Asda, told the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal late last year, weeks before Glass announced his retirement as Wal-Mart's CEO.

"As far as integration goes, we're way ahead of where we should be," Leighton said.

The Wal-Mart/Asda union stands in contrast to the rocky marriage between Arkansas' other retail giant, Dillard's Inc., and Mercantile Stores Inc. of Fairfield, Ohio. That $2.9 billion acquisition ranked second on Arkansas Business' rankings of the top deals of 1998, but difficulty assimilating the new stores into the Dillard's corporate culture has created a drain, on earnings and a drag on the stock price.

Wal-Mart stock was trading in the $43 range when the Asda deal was announced in June 1999. It closed at $53.38 on Feb. 2, but has been as high as $69 in recent weeks.

Arkansas Business' third annual ranking of the biggest business deals in the state indicates that fewer deals in excess of $1 million were completed last year than in the previous two years. However, the sheer bulk of Wal-Mart's Asda purchase means the total value of last year's deals -- almost $19.5 billion -- eclipses the previous totals of $4.7 billion in 1997 and $17.4 billion in 1998.

In order to finance the biggest deal of 1999, Wal-Mart issued $3.25 billion in 10-year debt, $1.25 billion in five-year debt, and $1.25 billion in two-year debt. The $5.75 billion in debt securities constituted the second biggest deal of the year. The remainder of the purchase price was paid for with cash and existing lines of credit.

The third biggest deal in Arkansas last year involved two out-of-state companies, CenturyTel Inc. of Monroe, La., and GTE of Irving, Texas. But the $843.35 million deal involved the sale of 215,000. Arkansas telephone lines stretching from Taylor to Piggott, so it is properly categorized as an Arkansas deal.

For CenturyTel, which purchased the lines from GTE, the deal meant an exponential jump in Arkansas business. Instead of having limited business in north Arkansas -and Pine Bluff, Arkansas is now in the No. 2 spot in the Monroe company's 21-state portfolio of wire line and wireless service.

Third on the list was the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department's issue of $575 million in highway bonds. It is by far the largest taxpayer-funded deal ever to make the Arkansas Business rankings.

The bond issue was approved by nearly 80 percent of voters in June 1999, and marked the first time in 50 years that Arkansans had agreed to borrow money to make highway improvements. (A much larger proposed highway bond issue, $3.5 billion, as rejected by Arkansas voters in 1996.)

Specifically, the bond issue was earmarked for repairs to the worst 372 miles of the 589-mile Interstate highway system in the state.

Although the state will be paying off the debt over 10 to 12 years, plans call for the Interstate repairs to be finished within five years.

The $481 million purchase of Liberty Cellular Inc. in Salina, Kan., by Alltel Corp. of Little Rock was the seventh largest deal of 1999. But it was small potatoes compared with Alltel's acquisition of 360[degrees] Communications Co. of Chicago -- a $4.2 billion deal that was Arkansas' largest in 1998.