J.B. Hunt Shareholders Re-Elect Board

Shareholders of J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. re-elected 11 members to its board of directors at their annual meeting Thursday at the company’s corporate office in Lowell.

The board’s directors serve one-year terms.

Those re-elected are Douglas G. Duncan, Francesca M. Edwardson, Wayne Garrison, Sharilyn S. Gasaway, Gary C. George, Bryan Hunt, Coleman H. Peterson, John N. Roberts III, James L. Robo, Kirk Thompson and John A. White.

All but Roberts, the company’s president and CEO, and Thompson, the board’s chairman, are nonemployee directors, who receive compensation including an annual retainer of $135,000 payable in stock, cash or a combination of the two; $4,500 for each board meeting attended; and reimbursement of expenses to attend board and committee meetings.

Shareholders learned the board has declared a quarterly dividend of 15 cents per share on its common stock, payable to stockholders of record on May 10. The dividend will be paid May 24.

Johnelle Hunt, widow of company founder J.B. Hunt, is a principal stockholder. The top institutional stockholders are T. Rowe Price Associates Inc., which owns 6.21 percent, and FMR LLC, which owns 5.76 percent.

J.B. Hunt’s shares were trading at $71.35 at mid-day Thursday on the Nasdaq, up $1.19 or 1.7 percent. Shares have traded between $50.56 and $75.73 in the past year.

In other business, shareholders ratified the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as the company’s independent accounting firm for 2013.

There were no other proposals on this year’s ballot.

Earlier this month, the company reported first-quarter earnings of $73.35 million, or 57 cents per share, up from $67.68 million, or 61 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue, including fuel surcharges, rose 10.26 percent to $1.29 billion.