Crain's Detroit Business, February 20, 2023, issue

Colleges confront questions on security

BY SHERRI WELCH

By their very mission, public universities and college campuses are open spaces where people live, learn, visit, work and play.

at can make it tough to prevent situations like the mass shooting on Michigan State University’s campus Monday night and to guard against internal threats, which make up the bulk of university shootings.

But universities are trying and, sadly, learning from every tragedy.

“We want students, faculty and sta to move about these campus communities in ways that allow them to learn, interact and

Next Rocket CEO will face challenges

Farner

comes at pivotal time for company

BY NICK MANES

In announcing his retirement last week from Rocket Companies Inc., CEO Jay Farner will pass the torch during a period of upheaval for the company and the mortgage business that forms its core.

e veteran executive has led the charge to diversify the company away from just mortgage lending into a broader nancial technology and services company, but much remains to be done.

Farner’s sudden exit from the parent company (NYSE: RKT) of Rocket Mortgage later this year comes just after Rocket and other mortgage lenders faced a challenging 2022 as interest rates spiked and much of the housing market went cold.

Farner’s exit from the company

controlled by Chairman and majority shareholder Dan Gilbert appears amicable, analysts say. However, it also presents a signi cant question the company’s board must now answer: Who’s the right person to lead and what direction should the company go?

experience what it is to be at a college or university. But at the same time, we also know we need to be prepared in the event something happens," said Christopher Knape, director of university communications at Grand Valley State University. "I don’t think anyone can prevent and prepare (for) every safety emergency that could arise.”

In the event of a threat, GVSU can lock down one or all of the buildings on its downtown Grand Rapids and Allendale campuses through a system installed a few years back.

Michigan State freshman twins Lauren Schelling and Olivia Schelling, both 19, embrace Brooke Goudreau, an 18-year-old freshman from Southgate, in the aftermath of last week’s deadly mass shooting at Michigan State University. | AP

Rocket Companies CEO Jay Farner speaks at the 2021 Mackinac Policy Conference on Mackinac Island. DALE G. YOUNG/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

NEED TO KNOW

THE WEEK IN REVIEW, WITH AN EYE ON WHAT’S NEXT

 AJEGBA JOINS CIVIL ENGINEERING COMPANY

THE NEWS: Paul Ajegba, who worked for 32 years at the Michigan Department of Transportation and rose to lead the agency for several years, has joined a Chicago-based civil engineering consulting company Infrastructure Engineering Inc. and A liates. Ajegba is a senior vice president who oversees the rm’s national, corporate growth strategy and heads operations and business development in its Detroit o ce, which was opened in 2021.

WHY IT MATTERS: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appointed Ajegba as MDOT director when she took o ce in 2019. After her re-election, she announced a cabinet shakeup in December that included Ajegba retiring at year’s end.

 EDUCATION BOARD MEMBER ANNOUNCES SENATE RUN

THE NEWS: Nikki Snyder, a Republican State Board of Education member, launched a campaign for U.S. Senate on ursday — the rst candidate from either party to enter the race following fourth-term Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s decision to not seek re-election.

WHY IT MATTERS: Snyder won election to the board in 2016 and is one of two

Republicans serving on the eight-member panel. She ran against Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin in 2020 but failed to qualify for the GOP primary after not submitting enough valid nominating signatures.

 NONPROFIT LEADERS AWARDED FELLOWSHIPS

THE NEWS: Nine prominent local nonpro t CEOs and directors have been awarded a sabbatical through a fellowship aimed at helping them “recharge, immerse in enriching experiences, build skills and knowledge and broaden their vision,” via the McGregor Fund’s Eugene A. Miller Fellowship.

 FORD HALTS PRODUCTION, SHIPMENTS OF F-150 LIGHTNING

THE NEWS: Ford Motor Co. temporarily halted production and shipments of its F-150 Lightning electric pickup over a potential battery issue. e automaker did not disclose the details of the potential issue, although spokeswoman Emma Bergg said an investigation is underway after a vehicle displayed a possible problem as part of the company’s pre-delivery quality inspections. It is unclear how long the halt on production and shipments will continue.

WHY IT MATTERS: It’s a major setback for Ford, because the F-150 Lightning is a key part of the automaker’s plans to produce 600,000 EVs annually by the end of this year, and 2 million by 2026.

WHY IT MATTERS: Recipients will be out of pocket for a year as they go through the fellowship. Awardees include Allandra Bulger, executive director of Co.act Detroit; Angela Reyes, executive director of Detroit Hispanic Development Corp.; Ashley Atkinson, co-director of Keep Growing Detroit; Christine Bell, executive director of Urban Neighborhood Initiatives; Courtney Smith, president and CEO of the Detroit Phoenix Center; Derek Aguirre, president and CEO of Racquet Up Detroit; Kimberly Johnson, president and CEO of Developing K.I.D.S; Suma Karaman Rosen, executive director of InsideOut Literary Arts; and Yodit Mes n Johnson, president and CEO of Nonpro t Enterprise at Work.

Correction

 Denise Kay’s last name was spelled incorrectly in the “MSU startup Enspired Solutions gains steam with PFAS-destroying tech” story that published in Crain’s on Feb. 13.

FOOD & DRINK

Iconic Karl’s Cabin restaurant forced to close following re

 A popular restaurant and banquet center in Salem Township is closed following a re Wednesday evening. Customers and sta were forced to evacuate Karl’s Cabin Restaurant & Banquets at 6005 Gotfredson Road due to what re o cials called a three-alarm re. No injuries were reported. No speci c cause had been determined, according to Salem Township Fire Chief Jim Rachwal, and an investigation is ongoing. Fire crews responded to the re at 6:24 p.m. Wednesday to nd a blaze that started in the rear of the building near an employee entrance area.

e re spread to the banquet area and roof, Rachwal said. Crews extinguished the re around 8:30 p.m., according to Rachwal. Some sta attempted to use re extinguishers to put out the re but were unsuccessful. Departments were forced to truck in water because there are no hydrants in the area, according to the re chief. Rachwal said the re appears to have started in a designated smoking area, but it’s unclear if that is what caused the blaze.

e building sustained re, smoke and water damage, but a signi cant portion of it was saved, according to a post from the Ann Arbor Fire Department.

Fire crews from four counties battled a three-alarm re at Karl’s Cabin Restaurant & Banquets in Salem Township on Wednesday.

NEW TAKES ON WORK SPACE

dealers seeing strong sales

It’s been nearly three years since the COVID-19 pandemic upended o ce markets around the country, including in Michigan.

As landlords generally have been seeing tenants downsize their footprints or put blocks of space up for sublease, one segment of the o ce ecosystem has been rebounding since the scary early days of the global health crisis: Furniture dealers.

Companies upgrading their ex-

isting o ces as incentives to get employees to reduce their time working from home, even if they are smaller footprints, has been an unanticipated boost, some said. Others have seen steady business in other sectors, such as education and health care, helping blunt the blow. And yet many are even outpacing pre-pandemic rev-

enue gures, as painful as the rst weeks and months were.

“In 2020, when everything was happening, we were nervous about what our industry was going to do and where it was going to go,” said Natalie Flora, chief creative o cer for Interior Environments, which sells Allsteel, Gunlocke and HBF furniture, among others. It has o ces in Novi, as well as Denver and Boise.

ere was good reason for the nervousness.

According to Grand Rapids-based Business and Institution-

al Furniture Manufacturers Association, the American o ce furniture market dropped 12.2 percent to $12.94 billion in 2020, down from $14.74 billion in 2019. It was $14.09 billion in 2018 before it jumped 4.6 percent the following year.

In the Detroit area, o ce usage largely stopped in its tracks as workers were told to work from home to prevent the disease’s spread. e effects of the WFH mandate are still being felt today, and likely will be well into the future.

Michigan

OKs incentives for Ford EV battery plant $1B package secures factory in Marshall

DAVID EGGERT

LANSING — Michigan’s economic development arm last week approved a big incentives package to secure a new $3.5 billion electric vehicle battery factory and 2,500 jobs in Marshall.

e agreement with Dearborn-based Ford Motor Co. includes roughly $1 billion in cash and tax breaks, with hundreds of millions more likely coming later to support the project.

A Ford subsidiary will own the plant about 95 miles west of Detroit, and its workers will build the lithium iron phosphate batteries using knowledge and services provided by China-based partner Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., the world’s largest producer of EV batteries.

Jobs will pay between $20 and $50 an hour. e batteries will be used in several types of Ford vehicles.

“ is project represents a once-in-a-generation economic opportunity,” Marshall City Manager Derek Perry told the Michigan Strategic Fund Board before it took three separate 10-0 votes. “It will create economic opportunities while allowing us to preserve our unique local culture, character and way of life.”

e incentives for the BlueOval Battery Park, a key for Ford’s plans to make 2 million EVs by the end of 2026, include:

 A $210 million Critical Industry Program grant from Michigan’s Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve Fund, known as SOAR. Lawmakers will have to OK the transfer, too.  A Renaissance Zone tax exemption on real and personal property worth an estimated $772 million over 15 years.

Sterling Heights Arab orchestra building fanbase around the world

When tickets for the Sterling Heights-based National Arab Orchestra’s inaugural performance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts became available in late January, they sold out within two hours.

People will have traveled from more than 20 states to attend the performance Friday night.

at’s unusual for a group appearing at the Washington, D.C., venue for the rst time, said Tres McMichael, program manager of social impact civic alliances for the Kennedy Center. Even before the tickets for the performance went on sale, people were calling the center’s box o ce asking when they could get them. And even now, “we have people from embassies asking if they can get tickets” to the

1,100-seat NAO performance and two other sold-out performances that are part of the “Taking Back Our Narrative,” three-day festival presented by the center and the Arab America Foundation, McMichael said.

“I think the anticipation and excitement we’ve received from...our standard audience and the new audiences NAO and the Arab America Foundation are bringing…is proof that the work we are doing is strong,” he said.

“And it’s an indicator that (NAO is) a phenomenal, world-class organization.”

Bringing culture to life

Founded just 14 years ago, the small, nonpro t orchestra has quietly built a national and international following.

Music director and maestro Michael Ibrahim, a Metro Detroit resident, and Chairman Usama Baalbaki, co-founded the NAO to keep Arab culture alive and teach others about it.

Ibrahim usually plays an instrument while he is conducting and is “like the Freddie Mercury of the Arab world,” incredibly charismatic and engaging with the audience, NAO’s Executive Director Sherri Richards said.

Steelcase dealer Custer Inc., which has clients in Southwest, West and Northern Michigan and Northern Indiana, has gotten jobs redesigning smaller o ce footprints and creating better collaboration spaces. | CUSTER INC. ARTS

Even as many o ces remain underused, furniture

KIRK PINHO AND RACHEL WATSON

SHERRI WELCH

Co-founder and maestro Michael Ibrahim leads the Nationa Arab Orchestra with Lebanese-born singer Abeer Nehma, who appeared with the orchestra and the UMS Choral Union on March 19, 2022 at her only US performance that year. |

Ibrahim Richards

Flora

In the days after it was rst revealed that Ford Motor Co. was planning to buy and redevelop the hulking Michigan Central Station in Corktown, something of a gold rush took place. Details had not even emerged on what eventually has become a nearly $1 billion vision surrounding multiple properties in the hip enclave west of downtown, and still the real estate market became almost immediately — there’s really no other word to describe it — bonkers. Prices skyrocketed. Longtime property owners sought pay dirt, whether they had done anything to improve their assets or not. Rents for residential, commercial, restaurant and other space were soaring in anticipation of what eventually was revealed to be the Blue Oval’s arrival with some 5,000 white-collar workers working on autonomous and electric vehicles.

How precisely the coming months play out for the neighborhoods surrounding the New Center area following the recent announcement of $2.5 billion in Henry Ford Health, Michigan State University and Tom Gores investment is not known, of course.

Some expect a much calmer commercial real estate market response to the news in the weeks and months ahead, citing steady, ongoing largescale investment in that area of town ranging from tens of millions pumped into the Fisher Building on West Grand Boulevard to a costly redevelopment of the Albert Kahn Building into apartments. Nearly $100 million was spent on the Detroit Pistons’ new practice facility and corporate headquarters.

Going back a couple decades, there has also been the redevelopment of the Kahn-designed Argonaut Building and the repurposing of Cadillac Place into state of Michigan ofces.

Pair those with a new apartment building called e Boulevard by Detroit-based e Platform LLC, one of the Fisher Building owners, as well as

the tens of millions Henry Ford Health spent on the new Brigitte Harris Cancer Pavilion, and you have a series of neighborhoods clustered around Grand Boulevard that have seen big investments before.

Richard Hosey, a Detroit developer who is spearheading a planned $134 million redevelopment of the decaying Fisher Body No. 21 plant a few blocks east, noted that the North End neighborhood, next to the New Center area, has been drawing lots of developer attention as well, including with the proposed North End Landing project with 177 units.

“My hope is that because it’s not on the absolute edge of a new direction, there has been so much activity in North End further out, there will be less of that (speculation) and as this happens more and more throughout Detroit, there will be less and less of that,” Hosey said.

New Center,” he said.

For Marc Nassif, senior managing director in the Detroit o ce of BBG, a Dallas-based appraisal rm, the Feb. 8 announcement points to a healthy real estate market, with multiple big investors putting big money in various areas around town, ranging from downtown and the east Detroit riverfront (Dan Gilbert), the District Detroit (the Ilitches and Stephen Ross) and Corktown (Ford) — and now New Center and the adjoining areas (Henry Ford Health, Michigan State and Gores).

“We now have multiple user-driven groups coming in looking at Detroit, looking at not only their immediate needs, but spillover to a campus,” Nassif said. “ at should be viewed on one hand as a healthy market.”

However, there are still largenancing gaps to contend with for developers large and small in those areas, Nassif said.

“If you look at smaller in ll developers, people who are taking property in the shadow of the major development, there still is a signi cant hole even in places like Corktown, the (Central Business District) and Midtown, where the asking rates from a rental and sale perspective really have gone up since those developments came into play,” Nassif said.

“But there is still a pretty gaping hole where groups like Invest Detroit, Cinnaire and Capital Impact Partners are coming into those deals and having to ll pretty signi cant gaps in the capital stack to make them work.

AJ Weiner, managing director in the Royal Oak o ce of brokerage house JLL, said that area of Detroit “has kept its own modest momentum going” for years. He also expects a calmer response in and around New Center.

“New Center maybe didn’t get as many headlines as Midtown and downtown and Corktown have received, but there has been a steady stream of activity there since GM worked out a transaction with the state on Cadillac Place,” Weiner said.

“A year didn’t go by where there wasn’t some project happening in

e fact that there is a new master development announced does not really close the cap on an in ll or neighborhood building or smaller development,” Nassif said.

For his part, Robert Riney, CEO of Henry Ford Health, told Crain’s he expects more in the coming months to be revealed.

“Just because of the magnitude of our investment, I anticipate that within months of our announcement, there will be some additional announcements from others that feel a desire to become part of this,” Riney said. “I think this is the beginning.”

An aerial view over Henry Ford Hospital and the Detroit Pistons Performance Center in Detroit.

menu at Lekker Choco Treats features just a handful of items, but they’re all hand-made by owner Nakija Mills.| JAY DAVIS/ CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Makeup artist turns to making chocolate treats to ful ll her dreams

BY JAY DAVIS

Nakija Mills dreamed for years about opening her own business and she nally took the leap in the last year or so when she was struggling to make ends meet as a makeup artist.

Armed with the belief that her Lekker Chócó Treats goodies can lift customers’ spirits and provide an income at the same time, Mills opened her sweets shop in December in Laurel Park Place mall in Livonia.

Her store is just across from an Olga’s Kitchen restaurant and near a mall entrance, which allows Mills to catch potential customers coming in or on their way out. She entices buyers with displays of handmade chocolate-covered fruits and other goodies on the counter whilethe smell of fresh chocolate wafts through the air.

“It’s chocolate. I feel like it’s a natural mood booster,” the 36-year-old entrepreneur said. “Just the smell makes you feel good.”

people walking by who have a lot of questions,” Mills said. “I keep everything behind the counter so anyone who’s interested or intrigued has to come up and talk to me. I give them all the details, and they buy some things. It’s a lot of fun.”

in Royal Oak.

Lekker Chócó Treats, Dutch for “Tasty Chocolate Treats,” o ers fresh, handmade chocolates and chocolate-covered fruit. e store also offers co ee, tea and hot chocolate. Highlighted items include strawberry skewers — fresh strawberries on a skewer topped with chocolate and other toppings. e menu also features Dutch pancakes, or po ertjes, that come with fresh fruit, chocolate and toppings.

Mills also o ers online sales of berry boxes, featuring a handful of chocolate-covered berries nished o with di erent designs. e site also o ers three di erent bouquets priced $65-$225 that feature Mills’ chocolate-dipped berries and other fruits.

“People love sweet treats. You get

Long,

strange trip at fun has come out of necessity for Mills.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she put the plans for her venture in motion while she worked as a makeup artist. Lekker Chócó Treats began in late 2021 as a pop-up shop inside the Browndog Parlor & Restaurant in downtown Farmington that was closed because of the coronavirus crisis. Browndog reopened in April.

Mills said she started her business with less than $100, most of which went to establishing the business’ website.

“It just got to a point where I had to do something.

I’ve always liked cooking and doing things with sweets. I just had a thought to share them with people and make it so I could support my family,” Mills said. “It’s been a long road to get here.”

Mills was born on the Caribbean island of Dominica and moved to the Netherlands when she was 10 years old. e European country is where Mills learned how to cook, including baking po ertjes. Mills came to the U.S. 12 years later, settling in New York with her then-husband. She made her way to Michigan in 2007, planting roots in Farmington with her two children.

Mills, now a U.S. citizen, was struggling to make ends meet when she decided to start betting on herself. So during the pandemic she began selling her products to local businesses and then got a space as a vendor at the 2021 edition of Arts, Beats & Eats

“ at was big for me,” Mills said. “ ey actually reached out to me. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to cover the vendor fee, but we worked something out. It made a big di erence. I was busy that whole weekend. We kept getting close to running out of everything. at kind of pushed me to try to get my own store.”

Mills enlisted the help of Detroit-based brand marketing rm Ask Jennyfer, owned and operated by Jennyfer Crawford-Williams. Crawford-Williams through her Corktown-based business helps small businesses like Mills’ better market themselves. In 2021, Mills participated in Market Fridays at downtown Detroit’s Cadillac Square, an event organized by Crawford-Williams that gives local farmers and small businesses a place to showcase their wares. Mills also had her treats featured at Crawford-Williams’ Corktown shop and online platform, All ings Marketplace, for Valentine’s Day 2021.

Crawford-Williams is proud of what Mills has accomplished.

“From the beginning (Mills) set her goals and she has accomplished them. I’m excited to see how far she will go,” Crawford-Williams said in an email to Crain’s. “Whenever business owners like (Mills) put in the considerable e ort to expand and work to reach their goals after working with me, I feel so proud. It lets me know that the work we are doing is e ective and that small business owners right here are bene ting from our services.”

Mills was aided in her search for a storefront by Basement Burger Bar owner Jimmy Azar, who sampled Mills’ treats and took a liking to the entrepreneur. Azar, who declined to be interviewed for this story to keep the focus on Mills’ e orts, made some connections and helped her nd the Laurel Park Place space.

“ at was a blessing,” Mills said. “(Azar) has been a lot of help to me.”

Presented by

Farmington resident Nakija Mills, who grew up in the Netherlands, has opened Lekker Choco Treats inside Laurel Park Mall in Livonia. The business o ers chocolate-covered fresh fruit, hot drinks, and Dutch pancakes known as po ertjes. | JAY DAVIS/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

“FROM THE BEGINNING (MILLS) SET HER GOALS AND SHE HAS ACCOMPLISHED THEM. I’M EXCITED TO SEE HOW FAR SHE WILL GO.”

—Jennyfer Crawford-Williams, owner and operator, Ask Jennyfer

EDITORIAL

A big win for Marshall — and Michigan

The recent announcement that Ford Motor Co. will build a battery plant in Marshall is a big win for Michigan.

e plant, which is expected to begin production in 2026, will create 2,500 jobs and produce enough new battery capacity to power 400,000 electric vehicles.

For Marshall and nearby communities, the facility means an injection of much-needed jobs.

For Michigan, it represents an important feather in its economic development cap, demonstrating the state’s ability to compete for the future.

Ford’s BlueOval Battery Park Michigan will be placed on a 950-acre “megasite” that was prepared and marketed by the state of Michigan as it vied against other states for the plant. While Executive Chairman Bill Ford said he was pulling for his home state to win, victory wasn’t a given. “ ey had to go out and get it, and they did,” he said.

Ford will license technology and contract services from Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., a Chinese-based company, to make the lithium iron phosphate, or LFP, batteries. Ford will own the plant and employ the workers, who will be represented by the UAW.

While General Motors Co. and suppliers, such as Gotion Inc. and Our Next Energy Inc., have announced EV-related job creation over the past 13 months, getting another of the major automakers to make a big investment in Michigan is signi cant.

So is the location.

e site is near the junction of I-94 and I-69, both vital routes for international trade. e siting, planning and execution of the location demonstrated strategic forethought on the part of the state and its local partners.

As part of the deal, Ford will protect 245 acres of property along the Kalamazoo River. is is smart stewardship, particularly given its proximity to where an underground Enbridge pipeline ruptured in 2010, contaminating the river.

While there have been some concerns raised locally about the plant potentially changing the nature of life in the small town of Marshall, citing the oil spill as a basis for opposition, as some have done, is misguided. is will be a modern, state-of-the-art facility run by one of Michigan’s most highly regarded companies.

And while farmland will be developed to make way for the facility, that will be a wise tradeo given the number of jobs created. Yes, agriculture is also vital to Michigan’s economy but the location of this property near the junction of two interstates destines it for a more active use.

Another signi cant change the plant represents is opportunity — opportunity for future generations to prosper in the region. Marshall is rightfully proud of its small-town charm and historic homes, and that won’t change. If anything, the economic boost will ensure those attributes remain.

More than a 150 years ago, in the mid1800s, Marshall made a strong push to be the location of the state Capitol when lawmakers were looking to move it from Detroit. It lost, of course, to Lansing. is time, Marshall wins. And so does Michigan.

COMMENTARY

Creating a ‘culture of yes’ in medical research

The health care community’s response to COVID-19 has been heroic and transformative.

Since early 2020, physicians, nurses, sta members and researchers have pushed themselves to their limits while organizations have found new ways to provide and streamline care — especially with the sudden and broad embrace of telemedicine.

Even as we stand in awe of this grace under pressure, this necessary focus on the pandemic has exacted sti prices. While much attention has been paid to the crucial issue of burnout, I also think a creeping cultural shift has occurred at academic medical centers like the one I lead at Michigan Medicine. Call it the “culture of no” as in, no we cannot do this or that because we must muster our limited resource to battle the crisis. In response, we must work to foster a “culture of yes,” one that inspires our brilliant colleagues to feel the freedom to pursue big ideas that can create transformative improvements in patient care.

We must cultivate this culture of yes across our organization, creating channels so that every member of our community knows that their good ideas will be heard and can ourish. It is in this spirit that I want to highlight one of the most exciting initiatives percolating not just at Michigan Medicine but at academic medical centers across the country: support for high-risk, high-reward research.

As the name implies, such research often takes place on the edges of science. It often involves a Eureka moment concept for which there is little proof of its e cacy. Such outside-the-box thinking poses a challenge to the traditional funding mechanisms — especially those used by the primary funder of research, the National Institutes of Health — which quite properly seek to direct resources to established ideas.

But, as a post last year published at the website operated by the Good Science Project observed, “A common complaint is that NIH’s peer review process can be overly conservative, because it is so focused on preliminary data guaranteeing that a project will work.

at e ect of peer review is probably even worse in today’s hypercompetitive environment, where it isn’t unusual for only the top 10 percent of grant applications to get funded.

High-risk, high-reward research often gets shunted aside in this funding model. To draw an analogy from Silicon Valley, it is like a startup with a great idea that may or may not work out. As venture capitalists know, you have to drill many dry holes to nd the unicorn success story like a Facebook or Spotify. But the

world of high-tech also shows us that a culture that says yes to innovation — one that encourages visionaries to think and dream big — can change the world.

e NIH has recognized this need through its High-Risk High-Reward Research Program, which supports “exceptionally creative scientists pursuing highly innovative research with the potential for broad impact in biomedical, behavioral, or social sciences within the NIH mission.” In 2022, the NIH gave 103 such awards totaling approximately $285 million. at might sound like a lot, but consider that each year the NIH awards more than $30 billion to 60,000 research and training grants.

To power innovation, several academic medical centers have developed their own programs to support high-risk, high-reward research. Michigan Medicine’s e orts, for example, are being turbocharged by a $20 million grant from the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation. Open to innovators at all stages of a research project, the Frankel Innovation Initiative o ers nancial support and expertise and guidance from an advisory committee consisting of world-renowned scientists and technology development professionals to help researchers develop their ideas.

Recipients include Dr. Paul Cederna, whose pioneering work is revolutionizing the eld of prosthetics. As Cederna explains, while we have long had arti cial limbs, they have been hard to control. His Eureka moment — it literally came to him in the shower — was that by connecting the existing nerves (which have relatively thin pathways) to muscles (which have relatively wide pathways) he could vastly increase the signal sent from the prosthetic to the brain. is provides users with a range of ne motor skills that can vastly improve their lives and livelihoods.

Another grant supports the work of a team led by Dr.Molly Stout which seeks to combat the crisis of premature births — which complicates more than 10 percent of the country’s nearly 4 million annual births and costs over $26 billion annually. Despite the high burden of disease and signi cant costs, meaningful progress is hampered by the inability to predict, with accuracy, when labor will occur. Stout and her team are being supported in their e ort to improve the standard transvaginal ultrasound probe now in use to more accurately predict the time of delivery and save the lives of mothers and their babies. is and other pioneering work would be hard to sustain without a commitment to high-risk, high-reward research. At root, our systems must be as inspiring as the people who work within them.

Creating a culture of yes will stimulate and encourage everyone in health care to nd new ways to improve patient care.

THE SITING, PLANNING AND EXECUTION OF THE LOCATION DEMONSTRATED STRATEGIC FORETHOUGHT.

MARSCHALL S. RUNGE

Marschall S. Runge, M.D, PhD, is executive vice president for Medical A airs and dean of the Medical School for the University of Michigan. He serves on the Board of Directors for Eli Lilly and Company.

“You were clearly the hands down winner of all the sites,” Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley says to Marshall Mayor Jim Schwartz during the recent announcement of a battery plant in Marshall. KURT NAGL/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

WE MUST WORK TO FOSTER A “CULTURE OF YES,” ONE THAT INSPIRES OUR BRILLIANT COLLEAGUES TO FEEL THE FREEDOM TO PURSUE BIG IDEAS...”

Late Detroit banking legend still inspiring change

When it comes to Black banking pioneers in Detroit, my father, the late Dr. Aubrey W. Lee Sr. comes to mind.

Mark S. Lee is founder, president and CEO, e LEE Group, and can be heard on “ e Weekly Wrap Up, Saturdays, 2-4 p.m. EST, and “In the Conference Room”, Sundays, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. EST, on 910am.

To this day, many stop me to thank me for his contributions to the city and the nancial services industry — near and far.

He was a role model to countless bankers and blazed the trails for others who would follow his legendary career, not just in Detroit, but across the country.

Growing up in Huntington, West Virginia, Lee was raised by his mother and grandmother. ey instilled values of focus, discipline, and hard work. Education was certainly a priority — although his grandmother had a fourth-grade education.

After attending Morehouse College (freshman year), West Virginia State University and Marshall University, Lee graduated with two degrees by the time he was 21. is was made possible by the savings of his grandmother, a live-in maid in New York who spent most of her life picking cotton and vowing that her two grandchildren would go to college.

Armed with his degrees and hoping to experience an enhanced quality of life while escaping the segregated South, he and his wife, Jeane, moved to Detroit in 1957. “He already had a job in another state but since he had an uncle he decided to ride with his friend to Detroit,” says his wife, Jeane F. Lee. “He found a job at the bank starting as a teller with a master’s degree. Since I and our baby were in West Virginia, he found an apartment in Detroit and sent for us.”

Lee landed his rst job at the National Bank of Detroit (NBD) — now, Chase Bank. While others with his pedigree would have been hired as a management trainee, he wasn’t. As a bank teller, he was placed on the front lines because he was a light-skinned Black, who was perceived to be non-threatening to caucasians as they were depositing and withdrawing their money.

at experience did not deter him.

In fact, it drove him to drive change. He was credited as the rst Black banker to take a managerial role at the National Bank of Detroit in 1966, and in that capacity he used it as an opportunity to bring more Blacks in as employees and managers, while extending commercial loans to minority businesses.

“After starting as a teller at a bank with a master’s degree, he felt it was not right,” Jeane Lee said. “ e white population were able to join training programs and move up to assistant manager. African Americans were not given the opportunity. erefore, Aubrey had to work very hard to move up at the bank.”

And while moving up, he reached back to bring others.

For example, he hired a young Detroit Piston and future Hall-of-Famer and Detroit mayor, Dave Bing, as part

of the bank’s management trainee program. He also recruited and hired legendary bankers to Detroit and NBD, including Walt Watkins, Linda Forte, Shirley Stancato and Tyrone Davenport along with Emmett Moten, who was the city’s Development Director during Mayor Coleman A. Young’s administration.

In the early ’70s, Young requested NBD to “loan” Lee to the city for a year to assist in developing economic de-

velopment strategies focused on attracting investment dollars downtown. As a result, the foundation was laid for the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation.

In 1976, Lee, along with other Detroit bankers, started the Urban Bankers Forum (now, Urban Financial Services Coalition, or UFSC) in his Northwest Detroit home where bankers would convene and discuss challenges for Black bankers while identifying opportunities for up-and-coming bankers interested in the industry.

By 1980, he became chairman, president and CEO of NBD Troy Bank, a division of NBD, and president of

the Troy Chamber of Commerce, later serving in corporate senior vice president roles.

And when he retired in 1999, he’d climbed every rung on the ladder and had risen to senior vice president and head of the Municipal Banking Group, just after NBD had morphed into Bank One.

Today, Lee’s legacy continues to live on. Community and education were very important to him.

In 2014, he was bestowed an honorary Doctor of Law by Walsh College.

e UFSC — Detroit Chapter now o ers the Dr. Aubrey W. Lee, Sr. Scholarship Award by granting scholarships to minority students in the state

FROM WSU TO RIVIAN

The Wayne State University College of Engineering was the perfect place for Christina to prepare for her career at a groundbreaking, innovative company. As a student, you’ll find more than 30 different programs, nearly endless research opportunities and cutting-edge technology that makes you the kind of talent that Rivian and thousands of other companies are looking for. That’s not just strong — that’s Warrior Strong. To learn more, or to schedule a tour, visit engineering.wayne.edu

of Michigan, who are speci cally focused on aspiring to careers in business-related disciplines.

“ ere are not a lot of Blacks in the C-Suite of the banking industry. We need to let the younger generation know that we are where we are because of what Dr. Aubrey Lee did 50plus years ago,” said Ketra Lewis, who serves as risk manager at Discover Financial Services and is also the Dr. Aubrey W. Lee, Sr Scholarship program director. “Me and all of my colleagues, we stand on the backs of pioneers like Dr. Aubrey Lee... Because of his sacri ces, future generations will have opportunities. He is an unsung hero.”

WARRIOR STRONG

CHRISTINA GUSTIN CLASS OF 2015

MARK S. LEE

Dr. Aubrey Lee Sr.

BIGGEST DEALS OF 2022

INSIDE

Highlights of the Biggest Deals of 2022 and Crain’s full list.

PAGES 10-13

GETTING A REALITY CHECK

Mergers & Acquisitions in Michigan hit reset after period of extremes

For M&A deal activity in Michigan, 2022 was a tale of two extremes.

Dealmakers were drinking out of a rehose during 2021 and into 2022, but by the latter half of last year, deals dried up. In 2023, experts say they expect activity to accelerate, though the strength of deal ow depends on a variety of unpredictable market factors.

e top 10 transactions on Crain’s list of Biggest Deals in 2022 totaled $27.5 billion, down nearly 40 percent from 2021, which generated record deals in terms of number and valuation.

“You almost saw deals just come to a screeching halt in the fourth quarter,” said Joe DeVito, partner at Dinsmore and Shohl LLP who specializes in corporate nance and M&A. “It was kind of a welcome respite for us in a way, that we all got to enjoy our holidays for once in the last 10 years.”

Last year saw the lowest third- and fourth-quarter global deal volume in the past six years, according to a Bloomberg analysis. Overall deal volume in 2022 dropped by 30 percent year over year to $3.5 trillion. Rampant in ation, soaring interest rates and global economic uncertainty were to blame.

“ ere’s now less dry powder capital out there,” said Je Helminski, managing partner at Auxo Investment Partners, one of the largest

private equity funds in Michigan. “If that trend continues, that will dramatically impact deal volume and valuations.”

It was a seller’s market for years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, DeVito said. Low interest rates coming out of the pandemic just fueled activity even more.

“ at was driven by continued liquidity in debt markets, the extremely inexpensive capital and this big overhang of equity capital looking for investment opportunities,” Helminski added.

It was the type of environment that allowed Troy-based Electric Last Mile Solutions Inc. to launch an IPO with a $1.4 billion valuation and that catapulted Tesla Inc.’s market cap to a more than $1 trillion peak.

“ ere was more money on the street, and there was a shortage of good companies for sale relative to

the mass amounts of private equity that was on the sidelines,” DeVito said.

Fast forward a year — ELMS has since imploded, its pieces purchased cut-rate by another struggling mobility startup, and Tesla is now valued around $671 billion.

In a nutshell, 2022 was a reality check.

Sellers had grown accustomed to the idea of double-digit multiples in 2021, and a paltry seven times EBITDA in 2022 didn’t look so attractive, DeVito said. On the other end, buyers saw economic storm clouds approaching and hit the brakes on transaction talks.

at has caused a reset. Buyers aren’t throwing money at deals like before, and sellers are forced to be more realistic about pricing.

The supplier group Forvia, based outside of Paris, was created after Faurecia’s acquisition of Hella, which was completed in January 2022. It was among the Biggest Deals of the year.

BY KURT NAGL

DeVito Helminski

Whirlpool headquarters in Benton Harbor

Stryker Headquarters in Kalamazoo.

See M&A on Page 10

The Modern Law Firm.

800+ attorneys strong.

Ja e has joined Taft. The combined firm will offer expanded legal counsel rooted in entrepreneurial thinking and innovative solutions.

The biggest of the Biggest Deals

Last year’s market for mergers and acquisitions slowed drastically in the second half of the year as interest rates rose and worries about the economy caused buyers to pull back and wait. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t some blockbuster deals. Here’s a look at the ve largest. The full list of Michigan’s Biggest Deals of 2022 starts on Page 11.

1Faurecia buys Hella, takes a new name: Two global auto suppliers with local North American headquarters joined when Faurecia acquired a controlling stake in lighting supplier Hella in a deal valued at $5.95 billion. The company later changed its name to Forvia.

M&A

From Page 8

M&A usually lulls in the beginning of the year due to a typical rush to close deals by the end of the year, Helminski said, but he isn’t sure when deals will pick back up.

“It feels like a softer start to the year than we’ve had historically,” Helminski said. “I do think it’s a bit of a question mark at this point.”

DeVito said he doesn’t expect the spigot to stay o for long. He said he has 10 active deals in the pipeline, on par with volume pre-COVID.

Even though capital is substantially more expensive than a year ago, deals are stacking up and likely to land with more frequency as the year goes on, he said.

“ e ones that tested the market in the fourth quarter and weren’t getting valuations that they wanted, they’re turning around and putting them back on the market in Q3, is what we’re hearing,” DeVito said. “ ey refresh the books and go back out to market.”

2Cummins adds Meritor: Industrial giant Cummins Inc. bought Troy-based for $3.8 billion to gain axle and brake technology for hybrid and electric power applications. The deal was completed in August.

3

Aptiv’s tech deal: Aptiv PLC entered an agreement to acquire software maker Wind River Systems from private equity

rm TPG Capital L.P for $3.5 billion. Alameda, Calif.-based Wind River, formed in 1983, develops software and cloud systems for several industries, including automotive, aerospace, defense and telecommunications.

posal maker InSinkErator Inc. from Emerson Electric Co. for $3 billion.

Another dynamic, especially for manufacturers, is that the smoothing of the supply chain is expected to spur more deals. e volatility hasn’t stopped some big players from making moves — the biggest deals of 2022 are mostly in the manufacturing and auto sectors, including Faurecia’s $5.95 billion takeover of Hella, which topped the list.

5

Garbage disposal addition: Benton Harbor-based appliance maker Whirlpool Corp. bought Wisconsin-based waste dis-

4

Health tech in focus: Kalamazoo-based medical device maker Stryker Corp. acquired digital health technology company Vocera Communications Inc. for $2.99 billion, expanding its portfolio in a growing sector of health care.

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

But many companies are still dealing with supply chain disruptions and nancial anomalies over the past couple years, making it di cult to market their company for sale. Buyers want balance sheet consistency before pulling the trigger, DeVito said, and the next few quarters could bring that.

“My read on it, starting mid-2023 into 2024, as this supply chain disruption resolves itself, you’re going to see a number of automotive suppliers go to market,” he said.

Contact: knagl@crain.com; (313) 446-0337; @kurt_nagl

Swiss company Holcim will buy Michigan PVC roo ng rm Duro-Last Inc. for nearly $1.3 billion.

| DURO-LAST INC.

Holcim buys Saginaw roo ng maker for $1.3B

CATHERINE KAVANAUGH PLASTICS NEWS

Swiss company Holcim will buy Michigan PVC roo ng rm DuroLast Inc. for nearly $1.3 billion. DuroLast generates net sales of about $540 million in North America’s highly pro table $40 billion roo ng market.

e world’s biggest cement maker, Switzerland’s Holcim Ltd., will acquire Saginaw-based Duro-Last Inc., a producer of single-ply roo ng systems that has seen double-digit growth, for $1.29 billion to strengthen its building product o ering.

Founded in 1976 as Tri-City Vinyl, the acquired company started out making pool liners. Two years later, owner John R. Burt found a new application: commercial roo ng systems. He grew the business with

product innovations like factory-welded seams to reduce the potential for leaks.

Duro-Last generates net sales of about $540 million in North America’s highly pro table $40 billion roofing market, according to a news release. e deal is expected to close by early in the second quarter of 2023. Duro-Last’s systems will complement Holcim’s integrated roo ng products and are expected to create synergies of $60 million per year, the release also says.

e pending transaction comes on the heels of three other acquisitions that support Holcim’s expansion into the North American roo ng market. In 2021, Holcim posted net sales of 26.8 billion Swiss francs ($29.87 billion). e company has 70,000 employees.

CRAIN'S LIST |

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS IN 2022

Ranked by value of transaction

1 FORVIA Auburn Hills (North America HQ) HELLA Northville (US HQ) Lazard, Berenberg and J.P. Morgan ( nancial advisers); White & Case (legal adviser) Perella Weinberg Partners ( nancial adviser); Fresh elds Bruckhaus Deringer (legal adviser); Perella Weinberg Partners ( nancial adviser); Fresh elds Bruckhaus Deringer (legal adviser)

Closed Jan. 2022 Sold by: Hella. Faurecia (Forvia) completed its acquisition of a controlling stake in lighting supplier Hella in a 5.3 billion euro ($5.95 billion) deal that is one of the biggest in the European automotive supply chain deals in the past three years.

$5,950.0

2 CUMMINS INC. Columbus, Ind. MERITOR INC. Troy Mayer Brown LLP (Legal Advisor); Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC (Financial Advisor) Innisfree M&A Inc. (Information Agent); Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz LLP (Legal Advisor); J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (Fairness Opinion Provider); J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (Financial Advisor);

WIND RIVER SYSTEMS INC. Alameda, Calif. Covington & Burling LLP (Legal Advisor); Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC (Financial Advisor); Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP (Legal Advisor)

WHIRLPOOL CORP. Benton Harbor INSINKERATOR INC. Racine , Wis. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz LLP (Legal Advisor); Greenhill & Co. LLC (Financial Advisor)

5 STRYKER CORP.

Kalamazoo VOCERA COMMUNICATIONS INC.

San Jose, Calif.

6 GENERAL MOTORS CO. Detroit GM CRUISE HOLDINGS LLC San Francisco

Ropes & Gray LLP (Legal Advisor); Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC (Financial Advisor); BofA Securities Inc. (Financial Advisor)

The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS) (Financial Advisor); Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP (Legal Advisor)

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP (Legal Advisor); Innisfree M&A Inc. (Information Agent); Computershare Trust Co., National Association (Depository Bank)

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP (Legal Advisor); Moelis & Co. (NYSE:MC) (Financial Advisor)

Fenwick & West LLP (Legal Advisor); Evercore Group L.L.C. (Fairness Opinion Provider); Evercore Group L.L.C. (Financial Advisor)

Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP (Legal Advisor)

Closed Aug. 2022 Sold by: BlackRockInc.The Vanguard GroupInc.; Glenview Capital Management LLC; T. Rowe Price AssociatesInc.; Magnetar Financial LLC. Cummins Inc. (NYSE:CMI) completed the acquisition of Meritor Inc.from a group of shareholders on August 3, 2022. As a result of completion, Meritor will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Cummins Inc.

Closed Dec. 2022 Sold by: TPG Capital, L.P.. Aptiv PLC entered into an agreement to acquire Wind River Systems Inc. from TPG Capital, L.P. for $4.3 billion on Jan. 11, 2022.

Closed Oct. 2022

Sold by: Emerson Electric Co. (NYSE:EMR). Whirlpool Corp. agreed to acquire InSinkErator Inc. from Emerson Electric Co.for $3 billion on Aug. 7, 2022. InSinkErator's trailing twelve-month revenue, as of March 31, 2022, was $595 million, pretax earnings were $148 million and EBITDA was $166 million. InSinkErator is expected to operate as a separate business as part of Whirlpool Corp.'s North America Region. InSinkErator will maintain its headquarters in Mount Pleasant , Wis.

Closed Feb. 2022 Stryker Corp. signed a de nitive agreement to acquire Vocera Communications Inc. (for $3 billion on Jan. 6, 2022. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Stryker will commence a tender o er for all outstanding shares of common stock of Vocera for $79.25 per share, net to the seller in cash, without interest, and subject to withholding taxes required by applicable law.

Closed March 2022

Sold by: SoftBank Investment Advisers (UK) Limited. General Motors Co.entered into an agreement to acquire additional unknown stake in GM Cruise Holdings LLC from SoftBank Vision Fund

L.P., a fund managed by SoftBank Investment Advisers (UK) Limited and certain a liates for $2.1 billion on March 17, 2022. Separately, General Motors Co. will make an additional $1.35 billion investment in Cruise in place of SoftBank. Upon the successful completion of the transactions, General Motors shall own approximately 80 percent stake while SoftBank will no longer have an ownership stake in or have any rights with respect to GM Cruise Holdings.

$3,500.0

$3,808.4 3 APTIV PLC Troy (North America HQ)

$3,000.0

$2,987.7

$2,100.0

Chatillon, France

7 PERRIGO COMPANY PLC Grand Rapids HRA PHARMA

Centerview Partners; Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; Darrois Villey Maillot Brochier

TENNECO INC. Skokie, Ill. Rothschild & Co ( nancial); Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz (legal)

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) (Financial Advisor); Sidley Austin LLP (Legal Advisor); Baker & Mckenzie Partnerschaft Von Rechtsanwalten Wirtschaftsprufern,Steuerberatern Und Solicitors (Legal Advisor)

Sawaya Partners; Goldman Sachs Investment Banking Division; Rothschild & Co; Latham & Watkins LLP; Dechert LLP;

Lazard ( nancial); Latham & Watkins LLP (legal); Lazard

Evercore Inc. (NYSE:EVR) (Financial Advisor); Baker Botts L.L.P. (Legal Advisor); Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP (Legal Advisor); Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC (Financial Advisor)

Closed May 2022 Sold by: Astorg and Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

In May 2019, Perrigo embarked on a three-year journey to transform from a healthcare company into a focused consumer self-care company. This transformation included 12 di erent transactions, with the 2022 acquisition of HRA being the crowning jewel, returning Perrigo to its self-care roots. Perrigo's acquisition of HRA adds scale in key European markets - signi cantly strengthening Perrigo's global footprint - while providing signi cant operational synergies.

$1,900.0

Closed Nov. 2022

Announced Dec. 2022

BURKE

Sold by: Tenneco. Apollo completed the purchase of Tenneco as announced Nov. 17, 2022

Sold by: Veoneer Inc.. Magna Electronics Inc. entered into an agreement to acquire Active Safety business from Veoneer Inc. for $1.5 billion on Dec. 20, 2022. Under the deal, Veoneer Active Safety business will be combined with Magna Electronics. Veoneer Active Safety's employees will be joining the Magna family. The transaction is expected to close near mid-year 2023.

$1,600.0

$1,525.0

EC Mergers & Acquisitions (Financial Advisor) Robert W. Baird Limited (Financial Advisor); Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP (Legal Advisor)

NA NA

12 MANULIFE INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT; CAPITAL POWER CORP. MIDLAND COGENERATION VENTURE LIMITED PARTNERSHIP Midland NA Torys

13 FORD OTOSAN NETHERLANDS B.V. Schiphol, Noord-Holland,

14 TRISUMMIT UTILITIES INC.

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

FORD ROMANIA SA Bucharest, Romania

NA

NA

ALASKA PIPELINE CO./ENSTAR NATURAL GAS CO./COOK INLET NATURAL GAS STORAGE/ NORSTAR PIPELINE United States

15 APTIV PLC Troy (North America HQ) INTERCABLE AUTOMOTIVE SOLUTIONS S.R.L. Brunico, Bolzano, Italy

Latham & Watkins LLP (Legal Advisor); Stikeman Elliott LLP (Legal Advisor); CIBC World Markets Inc. (Financial Advisor); Deloitte LLP (Accountant)

Torys LLP (Legal Advisor); RBC Capital Markets LLC (Financial Advisor); Scotiabank Inc. (Financial Advisor)

Closed Aug. 2022

Announced Nov. 2022 M2 Capital Partners International Holdings Limited has made an o er to acquire Superior Industries International Inc.for approximately $160 million on November 11, 2022. M2 Capital Partners will commence a tender o er on November 11, 2022, to acquire 100% of the outstanding shares of Superior Industries International for $5.85 cash per share.

Closed Sept. 2022 Sold by: OMERS Infrastructure Management Inc.. Capital Power Corp. (TSX:CPX) and Manulife Infrastructure Fund II, L.P., managed by Manulife Investment Management signed an agreement to acquire Midland Cogeneration Venture Limited Partnership from OMERS Infrastructure Management Inc. and others for approximately $890 million on July 12, 2022. Capital Power and Manulife will assume $521 million of project level debt as a part of consideration.

Sold by: Ford Motor Co.; Ford Capital B.V. Ford Otosan Netherlands B.V completed the acquisition of Ford Romania SA from Ford Capital B.V. and Ford Motor Co.for €770 million on July 1, 2022. As per the terms of the transaction, rst installment has been calculated and paid as €406 million after taking into consideration net debt, net working capital and Next Generation Courier investments based on estimated June 30, 2022 nancial statements. €196 million will be paid including interest in June 2025 and €23 million will be paid including interest in December 2028 and also depending on the expected capacity utilization rate of the Romania plant for the years 2028-2034 an additional payment of up to €140 million can be made.

$975.0

$1,100.0 SUPERIOR INDUSTRIES INTERNATIONAL INC. South eld

$818.6

Announced

May 2022

Sold by: SEMCO Energy Inc.. TriSummit Utilities Inc. entered into a de nitive agreement to acquire Alaska Pipeline Co., ENSTAR Natural Gas Co., NORSTAR Pipeline Co. Inc., and 65% stake in Cook Inlet Natural Gas Storage (Alaskan Utilities) from SEMCO Energy Inc. for $800 million on May 25, 2022. Fully committed nancing from the company's indirect shareholders for all funds necessary is already in place. The company's expects the permanent nancing of the transaction to be approximately 50-55 percent common equity with the remaining nancing to be in the form of long-term debt. Buyer shall pay to vendor a fee equal to 4% of the base purchase price in case of termination.

$800.0

Cli ord Chance LLP (Legal Advisor); Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC (Financial Advisor)

BNP Paribas SA (ENXTPA:BNP) (Financial Advisor); NCTM Studio Legale Associato (Legal Advisor)

Closed Dec. 2022

Sold by: INTERCABLE srl. Aptiv PLC completed the acquisition of an 85% stake in Intercable Automotive Solutions S.R.L. from INTERCABLE srl on Dec. 1, 2022. The transaction is valued at approximately €595.

$595.4

CRAIN'S LIST |

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS IN 2022

COMPAGNIE PLASTIC OMNIUM SE Levallois-perret, Ile-de-France, France

17

18

VARROC LIGHTING SYSTEMS INC. Plymouth

DT MIDSTREAM INC. Detroit MILLENNIUM PIPELINE CO. LLC Pearl River, N.Y.

Linklaters LLP (Legal Advisor); SG Corporate & Investment Banking (Financial Advisor); Khaitan & Co. (Legal Advisor)

Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP (Legal Advisor); Rothschild & Co SCA (ENXTPA:ROTH) (Financial Advisor)

Shearman & Sterling LLP (Legal Advisor); Lazard Ltd (NYSE:LAZ) (Financial Advisor) Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP (Legal Advisor); BofA Securities Inc. (Financial Advisor)

TENARIS S.A. Luxembourg City, Luxembourg BENTELER STEEL & TUBE CORP. Houston Sullivan & Cromwell LLP (Legal Advisor); Jones Walker LLP (Legal Advisor); Mitrani, Caballero & Ruiz Moreno (Legal Advisor)

LINCOLN ELECTRIC HOLDINGS INC.

FORI AUTOMATION INC. Shelby Township

Adams and Reese, L.L.P. (Legal Advisor); Mayer Brown LLP (Legal Advisor); Breazeale, Sachse & Wilson, L.L.P. (Legal Advisor)

Cuatrecasas, Goncalves Pereira, S.L.P. (Legal Advisor) Legal (Butzel): Patrick Dreisig, Geaneen Arends, Suzanne Miller; UHY (Investment Banker);

& Co. (Legal Advisor)

Closed Oct. 2022

Closed Oct. 2022

Sold by: VarrocCorp Holding B.V.. Compagnie Plastic Omnium SE (ENXTPA:POM) completed the acquisition of Varroc Lighting Systems Inc. from VarrocCorp Holding B.V. for €520 million on October 6, 2022.

Sold by: National Grid plc (LSE:NG.). DT Midstream Inc. (NYSE:DTM) completed the acquisition of an additional 26.25% ownership interest in Millennium Pipeline from National Grid plc (LSE:NG.) on October 07, 2022.

Announced July 2022 Sold by: Benteler North America Corp.. Tenaris S.A. (BIT:TEN) entered into an agreement to acquire Benteler Steel & Tube Corp. from Benteler North America Corp. for $460 million on July 7, 2022.

$558.0

$552.0

$460.0

Dec. 2022 Sold by: Fori Automation Inc.. Lincoln Electric Holdings Inc. (NasdaqGS:LECO) entered into a de nitive agreement to acquire Fori Automation Inc. for $427 million on Oct. 14, 2022. $427.0

Nov. 2022

& Investments Private

FEV North America Inc.

Tech Industries Group Inc. entered into a Share Exchange Agreement to acquire Wild re Media Corp. for $270 million on Sept. 4, 2022. Under the terms of the agreement GTII will, at the closing, issue to the Wild re Shareholders 100 million restricted common shares in exchange for all outstanding shares of Wild re Media.

Sold by: Liv Communities LLC. Clearwater Living Management Inc. acquired LivGenerations portfolio in Pheonix , Ariz. from Liv Communities LLC in November 2022. Chad Lavender and Ryan Maconachy of Newmark represented the seller, Liv Communities.

Closed March 2022 Sold by: Tianjin Santroll Electric Automobile Technology Co.,Ltd.. BorgWarner Inc. (NYSE:BWA) signed an Equity Transfer Agreement to acquire Santroll Automotive Components from Tianjin Santroll Electric Automobile Technology Co.,Ltd. for CNY 1.4 billion on Feb. 15, 2022. Stewart Wang of DLA Piper UK LLP Shanghai Representative O ce acted as legal advisor to BorgWarner Inc. (NYSE:BWA).

BUSINESS OF SIEMENS AG Germany

DENALI INGREDIENTS LLC New Berlin, Wis.

27 GENTHERM INC. Northville AUTOMOTIVE

PPC ENTERPRISES New York EDUSTAFF LLC Grand Rapids

BORGWARNER INC. Auburn Hills RHOMBUS ENERGY SOLUTIONS INC. San Diego, Calif.

Eversheds Sutherland (Germany) LLP (Legal Advisor); Greenhill & Co. LLC (Financial Advisor); Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP (Legal Advisor); Eversheds Sutherland China (Legal Advisor)

Dorsey & Whitney LLP (Legal Advisor)

Baker & Mckenzie Llp, Frankfurt (Legal Advisor)

Closed Aug. 2022

Harris Williams LLC (Financial Advisor);Closed Nov. 2022

Honigman LLP (Legal Advisor); Gleiss Lutz (Legal Advisor); Guggenheim Securities

NA

Covington & Burling Barnes & Thornburg LLP

NA

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C. (Legal Advisor); IMPROVED Corporate Finance B.V. (Financial Advisor); Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C. (Legal Advisor); IMPROVED Corporate Finance B.V. (Financial Advisor)

Closed July 2022

Sold by: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft (XTRA:SIE). Meritor Inc. (NYSE:MTOR) entered into an agreement to acquire Commercial Vehicles Business of Siemens AG for an enterprise value of $190 million on May 19, 2022. The consideration is in cash, adjusted for changes in working capital at closing. Greenhill & Co. LLC acted as nancial advisor to Meritor Inc. in the transaction.

Sold by: Denali Flavors Inc.. Orkla Food Ingredients AS agreed to acquire 84% stake in Denali Ingredients LLC from Denali Flavors Inc. on October 3, 2022. Denali Ingredients LLC is valued on a debt-free basis at USD 200 million. As part of the transaction, the seller and Denali Ingredients CEO Neal Glaeser will invest in Denali Ingredients and become co-owners of the company with a combined share of 16%. This will be OFI's rst business venture in the United States and Denali Ingredients' operations will continue out of the New Berlin facilities. Apart from purchase price the agreement includes a potential additional payment if the company delivers strong growth in the coming years.

Sold by: Alfmeier PrAZision Se. Gentherm Inc. (NasdaqGS:THRM) entered into a de nitive purchase agreement to acquire automotive business from Alfmeier PrAZision Se for approximately €180 million on April 29, 2011. The consideration will be paid in cash, subject to adjustments. The transaction will be funded through a combination of Gentherm's existing cash balances and revolving credit facility. The members of the Alfmeier team will become part of the Gentherm family. Alfmeier's automotive business generated €232 million in revenue for 2021. Guggenheim Securities LLC acted as nancial advisor, Honigman LLP and Gleiss Lutz acted as legal advisors to the Gentherm.

$200.0

$200.4 26 ORKLA FOOD INGREDIENTS AS Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Closed Dec. 2022

Closed July 2022

Sold by: Members of EduSta LLC. PPC Enterprises acquired all of the issued and outstanding equity of EduSta , LLC, a K-12 teacher sta ng and recruiting platform. The transaction involved a purchase of approximately 85% of the equity for cash with the balance rolled over by certain of the equity owners (primarily those who will remain in company leadership after closing).

Sold by: Emerald Technology Ventures AG; Cycle Capital Management Inc.; Greenhouse Capital Partners; Nabtesco Technology Ventures AG. BorgWarner Inc. (NYSE:BWA) acquired Rhombus Energy Solutions Inc. on July 29, 2022. The transaction has an enterprise value of up to $185 million, which is being funded primarily with cash balances. Approximately $130 million was delivered at closing and up to $55 million could be paid in the form of contingent payments over the next 3 years.

$187.5

$185.0

$185.0

CRAIN'S LIST |

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS IN 2022

Ranked by value of transaction

&

35 KNIGHTVEST RESIDENTIAL Dallas WESLEY Raleigh, N.C. NA NA

Closed May 2022 Sold by: Rock Companies LLC. Knightvest Residential acquired WESLEY from Rock Companies LLC for approximately $110 million on May 31, 2022. The 354-unit Legends Cary Towne Apartments at 442 Je erson Towne Drive in Raleigh, N.C., is now Wesley Apartments.

$119.5

37

MULLEN AUTOMOTIVE INC. Brea, Calif. CERTAIN ASSETS OF ELECTRIC LAST MILE SOLUTIONS

39

47 TRIMAS CORP. Bloom eld Hills INTERTECH PLASTICS INC. Denver, Colo.

&

36 KPIT TECHNOLOGIES GMBH; KPIT TECHNOLOGIES INC. FOUR COMPANIES OF TECHNICA Germany goetzpartners HOLDING GmbH

Closed

Nov. 2022

Feb.

Sold

Squire Patton Boggs (US) LLP (Legal

Advisor)

Provider)

49 BORGWARNER INC. Auburn Hills CHARGING BUSINESS OF HUBEI SURPASS SUN ELECTRIC CO. LTD China DLA

Ltd. (Financial

March 2022 Kelly Services Inc. (NasdaqGS : KELY.A) acquired Rocket Power Inc. on March 7, 2022. TechStrat acted as an exclusive nancial advisor to Rocket Power. $94.7

2022

Health

Suburban.

Goodwin Procter LLP (Legal Advisor)Closed Aug. 2022 Hagerty Inc. (NYSE:HGTY) entered into a de nitive agreement to acquire remaining 60.26% of Broad Arrow Group Inc. for $64.8 million on August 9, 2022.

NA

Corum Group Ltd. (Financial Advisor)Closed

TriMas Corp. (NasdaqGS:TRS) acquired Intertech Plastics Inc. from family on Feb. 28, 2022. Intertech Plastics Inc. generated approximately $32 million in revenue in scal year 2021. Steve McCullough and Dave Godenswager of BDO USA, LLP acted as nancial and tax due diligence provider to TriMas Corp.

Converge Technology Solutions Corp. (TSX:CTS) acquired Creative Breakthroughs Inc. for $67 million on April 1, 2022. Consideration for the purchase consisted of $47 million plus working capital in excess of $3 million paid in cash at closing and earn-out payments of up to $17 million in aggregate, payable over three years.

$66.8

$64.1

$58.4

Advisor) NA

Representative

50 MULLEN AUTOMOTIVE INC. Brea, Calif. BOLLINGER MOTORS INC. Oak Park NA NA

Announced Sept. 2022

Closed Sept. 2022 Mullen Automotive Inc.acquired 35.291537% stake in Bollinger Motors LLC from Robert Bollinger on September 7, 2022. Consideration will be in cash amounting $8.029818 million, equity amounting to $33.082852 million and earnout payment of $16.059637 million.

|Insomecases,morethanoneestimatedvalueofatransactionexists.Inthosecases,Crain'shas chosenthevalueitbelievestobemostaccurate.S&P guresmaydi erfromotherpublished gures,whichsometimesexcludeassumedliabilitiesorotherfactors.Fordealsinvolvingcompaniesgoingpublicviaaspecialpurposeacquisitioncompany reversemerger,thesurvivingcompanyislistedastheacquirerandthecombinedvalueofthecompaniesisusedforthedealvalue.Thelistdoesnotincludeall2022transactions,onlythosevaluedat$10millionormore.Itisnotacompletelistingbut the most comprehensive available.

SOURCE:S&PGlobalMarketIntelligence,(Marketintelligence.spglobal.com),BloombergTerminalandCrain'sresearch

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Practice, planning paid o as Lansing hospitals met tragedy

It helped save lives after MSU shooting

DUSTIN WALSH

Dr. Denny Martin was at a business meeting last Monday night near the state Capitol in Lansing when the alert came through: A mass casualty event in progress on Michigan State University’s campus just 4 miles away.

Martin, the acting president and chief medical o cer of E.W. Sparrow Hospital, the region’s only Level 1 Trauma Center, immediately rushed back to the hospital.

Unsure of the number of shooting victims, the hospital initiated its triage protocol to call in appropriate sta .

Within 30 minutes of the initial alert about the shootings, the rst of ve victims was rushed through the emergency department doors. Within minutes the other four victims arrived. Waiting for them in operating rooms were three trauma surgeons and four anesthesiologists, up from one each the hospital usually sta s overnight.

Martin changed out of his suit and into scrubs and, as is protocol for the top administrator during an allhands event, operated as the oor leader — an “air tra c controller” as he called it — as victims rolled in.

“Lots of people came into the hospital to help and we needed some oor leadership,” Martin said. “My job was also to help get key resources. We had to alert the local blood bank, the local Red Cross, the lab, radiology. We ran ve (operating rooms) most of the night, so we needed adequate supplies and sta there to prepare and sterilize equipment.”

So many sta ers turned up at the hospital that night to help, administrators eventually had to turn them away.

roughout the night, neurosurgical, cardiothoracic and general surgical teams worked to save the students. One of the wounded did not require surgery, Martin said.

Martin could not comment on the speci cs of the injuries, but said there were brain and spine injuries and all were “very life-threatening.”

Across town, sta at McLaren Greater Lansing Hospital were also preparing to take any additional victims.

“We didn’t know how many casualties there was going to be, there were so many di erent reports,” said Dr. Tressa Gardner, executive medical director for American Physician Partners, the group that operates McLaren’s emergency departments. “We didn’t know how long it would go on for because at that time, the perpetrator hadn’t been captured.”

e hospital, led by Gardner, sta ed up to three surgeons and ve available operating rooms immediately and prepared a second wave of sta to go in at 2 a.m. to assist if needed.

is was Gardner’s second mass shooting event in the last 15 months. She led the response for McLaren Pontiac Hospital, which received the most severely wounded students from the Nov. 30, 2021, mass shooting at Oxford High School that killed four students and injured seven other people.

“We were prepared because, unfortunately, we are learning from

each (mass shooting) we go through,” Gardner said. “Communication up to and during the event is the most important factor.”

Gardner said the Pontiac hospital was overwhelmed during the Oxford shooting, and there were hiccups in communication, none of which impacted care, due to cell tower overuse during the shooting. Parents, students and rst responders were all competing for nite radio waves.

On the night of the shooting, Sparrow was at capacity caring for the shooting victims, so emergency medical services routed all other emergencies to McLaren.

By early Tuesday morning, the four

victims were out of surgery at Sparrow and alive, something Martin credits to the speed in which rst responders got the injured students to Sparrow and the e ective communication of the sta at the hospital.

“It’s all about time,” Martin said. “From the initial assault to getting medical attention in our ED, it happened quickly. Our preparation worked and we had adequate sta ng to handle the situation. You can have the best individuals, but without communication it all falls apart. It’s why those ve individuals were still alive this morning (Tuesday).”

At 8 a.m. Tuesday, Martin broke down in tears at a news conference to

update the public on the condition of the victims.

“ is is something we practice for, but never want to do,” a choked-up Martin said at the brie ng with tears welling in his eyes. “We did it reasonably well, and I’m proud of everyone.”

(obstetrician) by training, so staying up all night delivering babies is what I’m used to. But not the stress on our team. By morning I was emotionally drained. I’ve been through the full range of emotions — profound sadness, anger and now pride about how we responded.”

Martin said every hospital in America needs to, if it hasn’t already, develop an e ective mass casualty response plan.

“Our plan got us through the night with positive outcomes,” Martin said. “You have to have a plan because it’s an unfortunate reality that most hospitals will have to deal with this at some point.”

Sta at Sparrow will eventually undergo a debrie ng of the day’s events, a spot check on how they did and whether everyone is OK.

“ e debrie ng helps with the shock component,” Gardner said. “It’s not about us, it’s about the victims, but we’ve all been impacted. e victims, and their families, those lives are changed forever. e rst responders, those lives are changed forever, too.”

McLaren was prepared, Gardner said, and will be prepared for the next mass shooting. But she wants change.

“OUR PLAN GOT US THROUGH THE NIGHT WITH POSITIVE OUTCOMES.”

By mid-morning, his sta sent him home to get sleep. He had e ectively been at the hospital for more than 24 hours.

“It was a long evening,” Martin told Crain’s on Tuesday night. “I am an

“Can we handle mass casualty event? Yes, but I’d rather we stop them before they happen,” Gardner said. “Whether that’s gun control and increased mental health awareness, we need to nd a solution. I don’t want to do another one of these, but my fear is that I will.”

Contact:

Dr. Denny Marti, the acting president and chief medical o cer of E.W. Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, gives an update Tuesday on the Michigan State University students who were wounded by a gunman on campus Monday night. | CARLOS OSORIO / ASSOCIATED PRESS

A stretcher is unloaded from an ambulance outside the MSU Union following shootings on the East Lansing campus on Monday night. |NICK KING/LANSING STATE JOURNAL VIA AP

—Dr. Denny Martin, acting president and chief medical o cer, E.W. Sparrow Hospital

Individual GVSU classrooms can also be locked from the inside to prevent entry, regardless of whether a campus lockdown is happening, through a locking system GVSU installed a couple of years earlier.

ose systems are among the more progressive options safety experts recommend, but they aren’t bulletproof.

It’s impractical to close o large sprawling college campuses, said Craig Gundry, a security consultant with Tampa, Fla.-based Critical Intervention Services Inc.

But there are physical security measures schools should employ to mitigate potential risk, especially on campuses with older historic buildings.

ose enhancements require a thoughtful approach and dedicated resources to implement them, Gundry said.

“Very rarely do I walk into a school where they have the budget to deal with all of these concerns," he said.

Keeping campuses safe

Active shooter incidents in the U.S. are on the rise. e number of shootings doubled to 61 in 2021, up from 40 the year before and 30 in 2018 and 2019, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Active Shooter Incidents report. ese shootings are happening in more states and killing more people, according to the report.

Given that, universities try to ingrain in faculty, sta and students a culture of safety, said Mark Gordon, chief of police for Oakland University.

Safety is a community partnership, he said. Everybody has to do their part, even if looks like it’s nothing but it rises to the level of suspicious in their mind.

“We’d rather they call 10 times and it’s nothing than the one time they don’t call and it turns out to be a tragedy on our campus,” Gordon said.

OU and Michigan’s other public universities o er active-shooter training programs for students, sta and faculty, online and in person. And they engage in scenario planning to establish how they will collaborate with other law enforcement agencies in the event of an emergency.

“Many of the things you saw at MSU, with other agencies coming to participate, those are things that have to be thought out and planned,” said Walter Kraft, vice president for communications at Eastern Michigan University.

You’ll never replicate exactly what

partments on duty 24-7, campuswide cameras to monitor activity, key card access to residence halls and emergency noti cation systems to push text alerts to students, faculty and sta in the event of an emergency.

e 1,000 cameras on EMU’s Ypsilanti campus enable the school to identify and record issues sometimes as they are happening so police can go back and track activity, Kraft said.

Oakland University, whose 1,400acre campus crosses into Rochester Hills and Auburn Hills, installed panic and intrusion alarm systems and over 200 “blue light” phones mounted on 10-foot towers to instantly connect to campus police in emergencies.

EMU, GVSU and OU are also among the public universities that installed swipe cards on residence hall doors.

“As we continue to upgrade campus, we are putting more of those (key card) systems in place…It’s an ongoing e ort to add the card readers to all of the buildings on the campus,” OU's Gordon said.

e University of Michigan and Wayne State University declined to talk with Crain’s about the safety measures they’ve put in place on their campuses.

But in a statement, WSU said that, like Michigan State and all universities, it constantly assesses its preparedness for crises of all kinds, especially mass shootings like the one that occurred at MSU on Monday.

you will confront in an active shooter situation, he said. But practicing your response ensures you have the systems of communication in place and processes in place to enable everyone to do their jobs.

“Our observation of MSU... is that they were really on top of it in the way they communicated about it and the way they handled a very, very tragic and terrible situation,” Kraft said.

Preventing and responding to issues

ere are some constants in security measures at Michigan’s public universities. ey include police de-

“Our professional police department, like MSU’s, is highly trained for such situations and is fully connected with other law enforcement agencies to ensure an effective and coordinated response," the university said in the statement. " e safety of our community is paramount, and preparedness is a constant, ongoing process. Our crisis team with representation from around campus meets regularly to discuss crisis scenarios and our responses.”

Missed opportunities

Still, some universities are missing opportunities to improve safety

on campuses, said Gundry, whose job at CIS is to help manage the risks of mass homicide for schools, colleges and universities, governments here in the U.S. and overseas and other clients.

First and foremost, he recommends audible mass noti cation systems.

“In the event someone isn’t looking at their phone, or it’s on silent, (universities) need public address systems,” Gundry said. Although students, faculty and sta get alerts on their phones, there are no public address systems because of the size of the campus.

With historic architecture on campuses and new construction not designed for active-shooter scenarios, windows and door locks are other key areas to address, Gundry said. Tempered glass on doors and windows can easily be smashed in, especially if broken by a bullet. He recommends upgrading existing glass windows with security grade, anti-shatter lm. (Intrusion-resistant glass, which has a polycarbonate inner layer sandwiched between glass is among the least penetrable, but more expensive.)

Another common issue Gundry said he sees on campuses is the choice of locks for doors. Speci cally, classrooms, lecture halls and ofces need to have locks on the inside of doors.

In some old school buildings, classroom doors can only be locked with a key from the hallway. ose locks and the inability to lock a classroom door from the inside led to the deaths of 26 people and injury of two dozen others during shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School and Virginia Tech, he said. Dorms, which have di erent code requirements than school buildings, typically have internal locks on doors that students can secure from inside their rooms, he said.

Some institutions have opted to use maglocks on exterior and interior doors, and those can pose issues. Maglocks use a strong magnet on the door frame to hold the door closed. However, to adhere to re codes, those locks must disengage if a re alarm is pulled.

Gundry said that’s happened in some places to draw attention to an issue or to force people out.

lockdown systems can also present a problem for people seeking refuge in an emergency, Gundry said.

“ e best approach is to make sure we have the right kind of electri ed locks that feature a lock-out function,” he said.

Such systems enable people inside the classroom, lecture hall or o ce to turn a thumb turn from the inside of the door to lock it. It disables the electri ed function, and the key card won’t work anymore, he said. But the door can be opened to admit someone seeking refuge and will lock again when it’s closed.

In 2017, GVSU installed locks on classroom doors that can be individually locked by occupants to prevent entry, regardless of whether a campuswide lockdown is implemented, Knape said.

Egress or the ability to escape from buildings is another thing Gundry said schools should consider. He’s also a big advocate of gunshot detection systems that hear the gunshot and see the muzzle ash or the heat from it and then sound an alarm.

All those measures come at a cost, Gundry said. But another measure he recommends is not as capital-intensive.

“College campuses use those maglocks a lot...it’s a major vulnerability” and a high priority to replace them with di erent hardware, he said.

Key card access to residence halls, academic buildings and gathering spaces can improve security by preventing those who don’t belong from getting into buildings. But if a shooter is a student and student badges provide access to university spaces, “we have a problem,” Gundry said.

Lockdown systems can prevent access in those cases.

at’s something GVSU, which has a full-time emergency manager focused on mitigating threats, implemented in 2019. With the touch of one or more buttons, it can e ectively lock down buildings on its campuses, Knape said.

While a useful prevention tool,

A lot of universities are reluctant to create disruptive drill activities on campuses, Gundry said. However, he said universities ideally should have a short presentation every semester that teaches students how to address emergency situations, such as active shooters, and how to spot and report potential behaviors of concern.

“Simply putting it on the website doesn’t mean you’re educating your students.”

Concerns vary from school to school, Gundry said. Some schools may have great windows, but they’ve got bad locks. Sometimes, it’s both.

“Quite often it does require ...(a) budget forecast over multiple years to really bring themselves up to a high level of readiness,” he said.

Contact: swelch@crain.com; (313) 446-1694; @SherriWelch

MARKET PLACE

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

An active shooter training class is presented at Eastern Michigan University. Most universities now o er online or in-person training to prepare for a campus shooting like the one that occurred at Michigan State University. | EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY

“WE’D RATHER THEY CALL 10 TIMES AND IT’S NOTHING THAN THE ONE TIME THEY DON’T CALL AND IT TURNS OUT TO BE A TRAGEDY ON OUR CAMPUS.”

—Mark Gordon, chief of police, Oakland University

 A $36 million loan for the Marshall Area Economic Development Alliance to buy, improve and convey land for the project. e loan will be repaid through a future Strategic Site Readiness Program grant from SOAR, which would need legislative approval.

e Michigan Economic Development Corp. said it anticipates also asking for site readiness program funds in the future to pay for additional land acquisition and site-development activities. While the agency declined to specify an amount, an o cial with knowledge of the state’s plan told Crain’s the extra funding may reach $800 million, bringing the total to $1.8 billion. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer proposed an immediate $800 million infusion into SOAR as part of her budget proposal.

e deal is the fourth in a year to support a new EV battery plant in Michigan, following the creation of the SOAR Fund in late 2021.

Josh Hundt, executive vice president and chief projects o cer for the Michigan Economic Development Corp., said Ford considered multiple states and countries for the plant.

“Michigan’s ability to meet project timelines and provide a cost-competitive location were major factors in Michigan being the company’s choice for this project,” he said.

He estimated that the Marshall area will see an additional $30 billion in personal income from direct, indirect and induced jobs over 20 years.

Gabby Bruno, Ford’s director of economic development, said there have been “a lot of false narratives” about the factory. It is not a joint venture, she said, adding that a Ford subsidiary will have “full control” of the plant.

“I can tell you that there was no lack of competition for this project,” Bruno told the board. “Michigan competed against numerous states and countries to win this investment, in large part because of strong economic-development tools like the ones we are discussing here today.”

e auto industry is at a “critical

TREATS

From Page 5

Mills, technically the business’ lone employee who receives some free help from her sister and a couple of friends, projects about $100,000 in sales in her Laurel Park Place space in its rst year.

Business has been steady, Mills said. Opening around the Christmas holiday season gave her a boost. So did Valentine’s Day.

“You have to have chocolate-covered strawberries for Valentine’s Day,” she said.

e more customers, the better, Mills said. More sales would obviously help her bottom line, but it would help in a variety of other ways, too. Mills said she works on her business sun up to sun down and putting much of what she makes back into the business, which doesn’t allow her to add paid sta to lighten her load.

“I knew starting out would be a bit of a bumpy road but I’m not going to let that stop me,” Mills said. “It’s hard for a lot of business owners, but I’m going to push through.”

Why a mall?

As a rst-time business owner, any

crossroads,” she said, “which drives the necessity to focus on the most cost-competitive locations for future investment. Public-private partnerships like the one we are discussing here today are important to keep Michigan at the forefront of automotive manufacturing. e economic support you are considering for this project plays a key role in helping make the business case for Ford to expand its EV footprint here in Michigan.”

John Mozena, president of the Center for Economic Accountability in Grosse Pointe Woods, criticized incentives as “ruinously expensive failures” because Michigan has 185,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than 30 years ago.

“Please just stop. Please stop throwing billions of dollars in a shrinking industry that has done nothing but abuse the generosity of Michigan’s taxpayers for decades,” he said during the board meeting.

“By approving yet another massive subsidy for a massive automotive manufacturer, the MSF board will continue to fail at its statutory responsibility quote ‘to promote economic growth and to encourage pri-

vate investment, job creation and job upgrading for residents in this state’ unquote.”

EV battery factory packages authorized in the past year include:

 $824 million in state incentives and assistance for General Motors Co. to spend up to $4 billion converting its Orion assembly plant to build fullsize EV pickups and, with joint-venture partner Ultium Cells LLC, to construct a $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion battery plant in Lansing. e agreement includes a $600 million Critical Industry Program grant to GM, a Renewable Energy Renaissance Zone exemption worth $158 million over 18 years and $66 million from the Strategic Site Readiness Program for electric, water and sewer upgrades. e projects will add between 3,200 and 4,000 jobs and retain 1,000 jobs.

 $715 million for China-based Gotion Inc. to build a $2.4 billion factory near Big Rapids and create at least 2,350 jobs. e deal includes a $125 million Critical Industry Program grant to Gotion — one of the world’s biggest battery manufacturers — a Renaissance Zone break worth $540 million over 30 years and a $50 million SSRP grant to support the pur-

chase of land and infrastructure improvements.

 $237 million for Novi-based startup Our Next Energy Inc. to open a $1.6 billion plant in Van Buren Township and create 2,112 jobs. e agreement includes a $200 million Critical Industry Program grant to ONE, a tax exemption valued at $21.7 million and a $15 million loan.

Quentin Messer Jr., who chairs the Michigan Strategic Fund board and is president and CEO of the MEDC, said it is important to understand that a lot of the additional site-readiness funding that the state will seek for the Ford factory “would have had to happen for any project that was going to go (the) Marshall” megasite. Other states and countries, he said, have been working to develop buildready land for 10, 15 or 20 years.

“Literally in a year, we have signicantly closed the gap,” Messer said. “When you do that, you have to pay dollars in one swoop. I think people sometimes lose perspective on that.” Crain’s manufacturing reporter Kurt Nagl contributed.

Contact: david.eggert@crain.com; (313) 446-1654; @DavidEggert00

In 2015 the mall underwent $5 million in renovations and saw the opening of an H&M apparel store. High-end department store Von Maur anchors the mall, where the food court is nearly empty.

Mills doesn’t worry about the current and future state of malls, though, as it relates to her small business.

“I can’t worry about that. I wanted to nd a place to start my business and I did,” she said. “I think we’re in a good spot. ere’s a lot of foot trafc in this section of the mall. We get the shoppers and the people who just come to walk around the mall for exercise. I’ve seen and read about what’s going on with malls, but that didn’t play a role in how or where I started my business.”

It’s an age-old business question of whether a company should stick to what it does best, or diversify to help weather cyclical businesses, especially in an industry that can take hard and sudden turns due to factors outside of the company’s control.

“Do you want to be less of a onetrick pony?” Guy Cecala asked of the company’s strategy in seeking out a new CEO given its reliance on mortgage lending for the majority of its revenue, which in 2021 was almost $13 billion.

“ at may dictate who they want as their CEO going forward,” said Cecala, the executive chairman of industry publication Inside Mortgage Finance. “All large nonbank lenders face that issue, but the success record of those who have tried isn’t that great.”

As the mortgage sector has taken a downward plunge over the last year or more, that diversi cation strategy has been communicated primarily by Farner, a nearly 30-year veteran of the company despite being only 49 years old. e goal, Farner has previously said, largely revolves around moving the company into other areas of consumer nance, such as personal nance, auto loans and home solar power. e goal is to become more of a nancial technology company, as opposed to just a mortgage company.

Given that focus, industry experts say the company’s board and retained recruiters have a fundamental question as they go about their search.

“Do they focus on the core of their business,” said Jay McCanless, a senior vice president for equity research at Wedbush Securities, referring to mortgage lending. “Or do they nd someone to help them grow and diversify even further?”

e plan calls for Farner to retire as CEO of Rocket Companies on June 1, and for Bill Emerson — the current vice chairman of Rock Holdings and a veteran executive of Rocket Mortgage and a liated companies — to become interim CEO.

Emerson, 60, will also replace Farner on Rocket Companies’ board of directors, which became e ective earlier this month, according to a regulatory ling. e incoming interim CEO has a long history in the mortgage industry, having previously been CEO of Rocket Mortgage, and observers say they think the company has a strong bench of new talent..

Rocket declined requests for interviews with Farner and Emerson.

Regulatory lings show that Farner holds a signi cant personal stake in the company, worth more than $52.5 million based on last Monday’s closing price of $8.87 per share, up slightly following news of his retirement.

He also has over $1.8 million in shares in a trust for his children.

space can be a good space. Malls, though, have gone through a decline in recent years.

Malls were already in trouble prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, but as shoppers shifted to online sales and stores closed, shopping center owners struggled to pay the bills. ere are about 700 malls in the U.S., down from about 2,500 in the 1980s. Local-

ly, Lakeside Mall in Sterling Heights is set to be demolished and replaced with a mixed-use development. Last year, Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn was sold to a Dallas-based real estate company and e Mall at Partridge Creek in Clinton Township was sold into receivership.

Laurel Park Place opened in 1989 and has been owned by Tennessee-based CBL Properties since 2005.

is truly is just the start for Mills, who hopes to eventually have 10 Lekker locations and eventually offer franchising opportunities.

“I see really big things for this business,” Mills said. “Who doesn’t love chocolate?

“It feels like this road has been so long that this has to work and I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that it does.”

Contact: jason.davis@crain.com

(313) 446-1612; @JayDavis_1981

Late last year also saw the retirements from the company of CFO Julie Booth and Angelo Vitale, who was general counsel and secretary.

A regulatory ling on Monday said that the Rocket board has retained an undisclosed executive search rm to nd a replacement for Farner.

at process is likely to take between three and 12 months given the current market for executive talent, said Todd Hohauser, the CEO of Troy-based executive recruitment rm Harvey Hohauser & Associates.

Contact: nmanes@crain.com; (313) 446-1626; @nickrmanes

Ford Motor Co. would receive $1 billion in incentives to locate a new EV battery plant in the south-central Michigan city of Marshall. | BLOOMBERG

Lekker Choco Treats in its rst full year is projected to do about $100,000 in sales, according to owner Nakija Mills. |JAY DAVIS/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

COVID-19’s early days saw a major dry-up of available projects, said Whitney Marx, principal of Detroit-based MarxModa, a MillerKnoll dealer.

“ e pandemic did hit our industry extremely hard,” Marx said. “ ere was sort of a collapse of available projects. So that did hurt all of us tremendously. If I had to put a number on it, I would say 2019 to end of 2022 there was probably a reduction of 30 percent of job opportunities that we were all up ghting for.”

Marx said, however, that the rst few months of 2023 give her hope moving forward, projecting to generate about 5 percent more in revenue than her company did in 2019. MarxModa reported to Crain’s 2021 revenue of $45 million compared to 2020 revenue of $61 million.

“What I’m seeing right now is a complete ip, and I would expect we will be surpassing prepandemic levels” this year, Marx said.

Today, metro Detroit’s o ce market has a vacancy rate of 19.2 percent, with the region’s second-largest submarket, South eld, clocking in at an eye-popping 30.1 percent vacancy, according to Q4 data from the Royal Oak o ce of brokerage house JLL. On a net basis, some 925,000 square feet of space became vacant.

Despite those headwinds, Flora and Nigel Addison, director of opportunities for Interior Environments, said the company had record revenue last year, increasing sales by 15 percent from 2021. Revenue for the company has not gone down during the pandemic, they said. e rm’s Novi o ce has grown from $51 million in 2020 revenue to $53 million in 2021 and $64 million last year.

“It went from what was really scary to a really exciting opportunity,” Flora said. “It really, I think, gave us almost what we needed in this accelerated way, redesigning the workplace and allowing all of our existing customer base and future customer base to think of something that hasn’t been done before.”

It’s not just upgrading space in readily apparent ways, Addison said.

“People are coming back to the ofce and they’re realizing this is terrible and they hear everything,” Addison said. “We’ve invested a lot of time and energy into creating a division that does acoustics and architectural products to help alleviate some of the sounds.”

ORCHESTRA

From Page 3

Baabalki is a world-class Arab music singer who will be performing at the Kennedy Center as a featured singer, Richards said.

“We are not a traditional orchestra in that we don’t have a concert hall, and we don’t have full-time musicians,” she said.

e orchestra plays “tarab,” traditional Arabic music, pulling a group of about 32 performers for each show from a pool of Arab and other U.S. musicians playing both Western instruments and instruments unique to the Arab world, including a reed ute called a “ney,” a 12-string lute called an “oud,” and a lap harp called a “qanun.” Other common instruments used in the music are violins, cellos and synthesizers. Songs often feature singers as well.

e orchestra performs a few times a year at the Ford Community & Per-

And Heather Lanier, COO and principal of Troy-based Steelcase dealer NBS Commercial Interiors, said the pandemic has forced executives to talk about workspace design and o ce space “as part of their talent management strategy.”

“We’ve been trying to get their attention for years,” Lanier said. “We’re very passionate that space, when it’s well designed and very thoughtful in its intention, can help an organization improve its business results by appropriately placing di erent divisions or business units adjacent from one another.”

Lanier said NBS has maintained pro tability throughout the pandemic, although revenue has dropped considerably. Prior to the pandemic, NBS pulled in about $136 million, and in 2020 it dropped to $103 million, and to about $98.3 million in 2021. But last year, the company grew to about $120 million.

Lanier said that although the company’s o ce furniture sales revenue is still “challenged,” other sectors — K-12

forming Arts Center in Dearborn in between performances in other cities.

is year’s schedule of 12 performances took it to Flint, Houston, Miami, Washington, D.C., and San Antonio, among other places.

Beyond its own performances, NAO also provides music education focused on singing locally at Fordson High School in Dearborn and before the pandemic, Chelsea High School. A group of about 30 Fordson students will perform on March 4 at the Dearborn Performing Arts Center, Richards said.

It has established chapters, or support groups, in San Antonio, Houston and Dallas. ey operate as extensions of NAO, hosting fundraisers, gathering the local Arab American community together and overseeing other events to celebrate the Arab culture with the community as a whole.

Growing a following

After a pandemic hiatus in 2020,

and higher education, and health care, among them — are bright spots.

West Michigan strength

ings are di erent on the other side of the state.

West Michigan o ce furniture dealers say they are keeping busy despite the changing o ce real estate landscape.

Year over year, Grand Rapids’ o ce vacancy rate rose from around 11 percent to 13.8 percent in fourth quarter 2022, according to JLL’s latest Grand Rapids market report. Transaction activity remained muted in the quarter, limited to smaller leases and renewals along with a few new-construction deliveries. e region’s Q4 vacancy rates are much lower than those of larger metros like Detroit (19.2 percent), Chicago (19.5 percent), New York (15.9 percent) and Los Angeles (22.5 percent).

Dave Sha er is CEO of Interphase Interiors based in Grand Rapids, and Johnny Brann Jr. is its president and owner. e company is a Haworth dealer and workspace designer with clients primarily concentrated in West Michigan, Traverse City and the Upper Peninsula.

Although Interphase is a private company and does not disclose revenue, Sha er and Brann said they’ve had three straight record-breaking years for total sales volume and an increase in customers despite pandemic

NAO once again took the stage in 2021. It collaborated with University Musical Society at University of Michigan in March 2022 and performed during Midtown’s Detroit’s Concert of Colors through a contract with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra last summer, she said.

NAO has also collaborated with the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and is set to team with the Houston Symphony in March.

During COVID NAO also went digital, livestreaming performances to its Facebook and YouTube pages. Beyond collaborations with well-established orchestras, that move has helped the small organization raise its pro le.

Its YouTube channel has since grown to more than 400,000 subscribers, and it has attracted 3 million to 4 million views every month for the past 18 months, Richards said.

“ at’s really helped us. It makes our concerts bigger (and) our donors want to donate more.”

(was) trying to make there be not so much disconnect between o ce versus plant,” Sha er said.

Todd Custer is CEO of Steelcase dealer Custer Inc., which has clients in Southwest, West and Northern Michigan and Northern Indiana.

He said his company struggled in 2020 and 2021 as clients faced the “start, stop” nature of lockdowns and COVID surges, but 2022 revenues were back to where they were pre-pandemic. He did not disclose speci c numbers but said the recovery was mostly due to increased business in the health care and education segments rather than the o ce market.

On the o ce side, he said some companies are downsizing, and Custer is being booked to help those clients redesign their post-pandemic footprints.

lockdowns, the rise of remote and hybrid work, and rising o ce vacancy rates.

Brann and Sha er said all three of Interphase’s primary segments — ofce, education and health care — are performing better than they were in 2019.

ey said as a smaller market with more family-owned businesses, shorter commute times and more traditional ideas about in-person work, West Michigan is more insulated from the more drastic downturns of larger markets.

“We have not seen businesses taking less o ce space,” Brann said. “ ere’s certainly been some refreshing of space. We’ve had plenty of new builds, and we’ve had record years over the last three years. So, in West Michigan, I would say it’s very strong, and I would anticipate getting stronger as more people begin to either get back to work in the o ce full time and/or with that hybrid model, which will still entail the same amount of space.”

Another contributing factor they cited is having manufacturing clients that are trying to avoid a sense of inequity among line workers, who can’t work from home, and white-collar employees, who can, by bringing the latter back in person at least most days.

One manufacturing client redesigned both the o ces and the plant workers’ break areas so that they would all have a better work experience.

“What they did … in that example,

NAO is now playing for crowds of 2,500-3,000 people, triple the audience sizes it saw in 2021, Richards said.

e increasing number of performances and larger venues NAO is playing are showing on its bottom line. e small cultural group’s revenue is expected to double this year, breaking $1 million, Richards said. It earns about two-thirds of its budget through ticket revenue; the remainder comes from sponsorships, grants and donations.

NAO’s performance in the nation’s capital comes on the heels of its second trip to the Middle East, following a 2019 trip to Saudi Arabia where NAO made history with the rst female musicians in the country’s history to perform on stage, Richards said.

In January, the orchestra per-

“It’s more community spaces, collaboration spaces, spaces that are more energizing (and) enticing,” he said. “It’s bringing more of that residential world into the space, more comfortable types of spaces, and also, more hospitality elements into the space … (as) people are so used to being at home. … No one wanted to come back to their old space, and they needed something new and vibrant.”

Some of the bigger renovation projects Custer has tackled during the pandemic include renovating the grocery chain and food distributor SpartanNash’s corporate headquarters last year and refreshing Kellogg Company’s Battle Creek headquarters between 2020 and 2021 to improve common areas and meeting and collaboration spaces.

“People are kind of really looking at their real estate and their buildings and saying, ‘What do I need to do? What investments do I need to make to drive people in to come back into the o ce at a more consistent level?’” he said.

Custer said he expects the trend of companies moving to smaller o ces or retooling the space they have will continue this year.

“It’s going to be interesting what happens in 2023, just with the economy, and if this recession happens and people pull back on spending,” he said. “But hopefully it’s like in 2022, and people continue to look at real estate and space di erently and make investments where they can and should.”

Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB

Contact: rachel.watson@crain.com (989) 533-9685; @RachelWatson86

formed in Sharja in the United Arab Emirates, near Dubai, a trip arranged by NAO supporters Ghassan Saab, CEO of Flint general contractor Sorenhson Gross, and his wife Manal Saab, Richards said.

Despite NAO’s growth in recent years, the Kennedy Center performance, which will be livestreamed, could put it on the map, Richards said.

“ ere are a lot of people who don’t know who we are even though we have some visibility,” she said. “To be able to say we’ve performed at the Kennedy Center just gives you additional street cred.”

Contact: swelch@crain.com; (313) 446-1694; @SherriWelch

The NBS Commercial Interiors Client Experience Center in Troy where potential clients can get a chance to see di erent o ce space designs. | NBS COMMERCIAL INTERIORS

Lanier Addison

“TO BE ABLE TO SAY WE’VE PERFORMED AT THE KENNEDY CENTER JUST GIVES YOU ADDITIONAL STREET CRED.”

—Sherri Richards, executive director, NAO

State housing exec focuses on rst-time buyers, rejuvenating neighborhoods

The Michigan State Housing Development Authority is on the front lines of the state’s e orts to add more housing supply, from urban centers like Detroit and Grand Rapids to rural parts of the Upper Peninsula and in the far southwest corner of the state. Increasing homeownership is a key part of those e orts, said Mary Townley, who as director of homeownership heads up MSHDA’s e orts around helping buy homes. The program works with banks and other mortgage lenders and o ers down payment assistance on homes priced up to $224,500.

BY | NICK MANES

 How have MSHDA’s homeownership programs fared during this real estate cycle, starting with the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020?

When COVID hit back in 2020, the immediate e ects of it were everybody was at a halt for a good three to six months. Realtors couldn’t show homes, lenders were all working from home and couldn’t meet with clients. So it was just kind of a, “Let’s put a pause on things and gure out what everybody can do going forward.”

So after that pause, interest rates were at an all-time low, Realtors started doing virtual showings of properties (and) eligible homeowners were still working with the banks, and everybody started to take the turn. When interest rates started to rise, MSHDA had an advantage because we fund with bonds.

 What does that mean?

So our interest rates are not necessarily tied to the same component like a bank o ering a mortgage product. So our bond rates are typically lower. And MSHDA continued on with growth over the last couple of years. Within the last, probably six months, we’ve had record volume of transactions that we’ve worked with and purchased from our banking partners, or our lending partners.

So we do feel that we still have signi cant skin in the game for new purchasers, and we’re continuing to o er our product line to lenders across the state so that they can support the rst-time homebuyer all the way to the jumbo (loan) homebuyer. And the jumbo, of course, is that really high end.

 Given the price limit you mentioned of $224,500, how is that a ecting MSHDA’s programs during a period of rising prices the last few years?

So we did see a rise in that middle range (where) home values went up signi cantly. The low-to-moderate side did go up, but maybe not as much as the

RUMBLINGS

mid-range.

We have a new fairly new down payment assistance program. Our typical standard DPA is $7,500, but we began o ering a higher DPA in certain ZIP codes across the state ... and that new DPA is $10,000.

 What does that mean?

So a (would-be) homeowner can again use that for closing costs, prepaids and down payment. So that helps o set a little bit of the rise in the sales price. If you look at low-to-moderate income households versus what rents are going for, we believe that most individuals that have a very stable job and the willingness to be a homeowner can purchase and have the same house payment as rent, or if not even lower. So, you know, everybody says (home) “values are too high, my payment’s too high.” But they really need to go to a lender and check that out and see if what they’re looking for falls below a rent payment.

 How would you say MSHDA’s homeownership programs are holding up in this current market where prices remain even as demand is somewhat muted?

We have a sales sta that are on the road ve days a week and they go out and meet with lenders and Realtors and promote the program and participate in community events. And we’ve gotten very positive feedback from our lenders. Basically saying, “We promote your program, we get rst-time homebuyers in.” And because of that, they’ve referred us to other individuals that were in their circle of friends to do this same kind of thing. So I think that we have a major piece in this a ordable housing realm in the state of Michigan. We’re just going to continue to do it and do more marketing to our partners and also the general public.

 Given the current market, as well as a large-scale push by the private and

public sector to bring more housing to the market, how do you see MSHDA’s homeownership programs being a part of that?

So years ago, we provided the funds for certain cities across the state to address blighted properties. So a lot of those that were severely abused and no longer livable, we provided funds for those to be demolished. There was a another group of houses that were not blighted, but they also weren’t attracting new homebuyers for that home or even that community. So we are partnering with communities that have available funding to rehab those homes, and then we come in and work with that community, that city, and o er a MSHDA program to a potential buyer. So we’re focusing heavily on communities that are trying to rejuvenate neighborhoods ... get them back up and running to attract young families. And I think that is one of our key programs that we’re going to be focusing on in the next probably 12-24 months. We have a housing stock, it may not be in the best shape in some areas, but we do have a sound housing stock that we can build o of.

 Given all of this, what would you say is most keeping you up at night these days?

You know, we need to do a really good job at listening to our partners. What works with our program and what doesn’t work with our program? And then work at meaningful change so that we can put more individuals in homeownership. I’m always looking for e ciency, streamlining processes, what makes sense for that rst-time homebuyer?

Nicole Kidman thriller sets sights on ‘Holland, Michigan’

DESPITE SLASHED SCREEN TIME for the West Michigan city, Mayor Nathan Bocks and others hope “Holland, Michigan” will help put their town in front of a national audience.

A thriller from Amazon Studios starring Nicole Kidman is slated to lm scenes in Holland this April, but several scenes centering on the downtown area and a Tulip Time Festival parade featuring local businesses were reportedly cut from the roster and will be lmed elsewhere.

In mid-January, the announcement that a lm led and produced by Kidman made local news headlines, and a public casting call for extras in a series of downtown scenes garnered a massive response.

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According to media reports at the time, Extras Casting Director Jenny Rodriquez said she received around 18,000 submissions from people interested in potentially sharing the screen with one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

What was slated to be several days of shooting, however, was narrowed to only a few scenes as lm sta decided to shoot parade footage outside of Holland.

Now, according to Tulip Time Festival Executive Director Gwen Auwerda, Windmill Island Gardens will be the main focus of April’s lming.

“Nothing will be shot downtown,” Auwerda said, “so local businesses aren’t involved.”

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Nicole Kidman’s Amazon Studios lm “Holland, Michigan” won’t lm scenes involving its Tulip Time Festival downtown. | GETTY IMAGES

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