focus: finance - Crain`s Detroit Business

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DETROIT BUSINESS MAIN 03-24-08 A 1 CDB
3/21/2008
5:34 PM
Page 1
®
www.crainsdetroit.com Vol. 24, No. 12
MARCH 24 – 30, 2008
$2 a copy; $59 a year
©Entire contents copyright 2008 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved
THIS JUST IN
Name of Metro Airport’s
north terminal for sale
The Wayne County Airport
Authority board on Thursday
awarded a 10-year contract
to Rochester-based General
Sports and Entertainment
L.L.C. to handle naming
rights, sponsorships and related marketing for Detroit
Metropolitan Airport’s new
north terminal.
It’s believed to be the first
naming rights deal for an
airport terminal in the U.S.,
said Michael Conway, director of public affairs for the
airport authority. The airport in Winnipeg is also
looking into such a deal.
The contract calls for
General Sports to get a 12
percent to 15 percent commission and up to $75,000
for asset valuation. The
company will establish
naming rights values for the
airport, including its other
elements such as jetways
and parking garages, and
then seek buyers.
The name of the airport itself is not for sale, Conway
said. Money for a name deal
would go into an airport improvement fund.
The $450 million, 824,000square-foot north terminal
is scheduled to open in the
fall and will replace the
Smith and Berry terminals.
It’s unclear how much a
naming deal could be worth
for the new terminal. Comerica Inc. signed a 30-year, $66
million deal in 1998 to put its
name on the home of the Detroit Tigers, while Ford Motor
Co. paid $40 million in 2002
for a 40-year deal for the Detroit Lions’ home venue.
The naming-rights contract came at the same meeting in which the authority
delayed a vote until May on
a controversial $3.6 billion,
20-year airport master improvement plan.
Andy Appleby, chairman
and CEO of General Sports,
was out of town Friday and
said he couldn’t comment.
Appleby led a consortium
that bought an English Premier League soccer team, and
he said it would sell naming
rights to its stadium.
— Bill Shea
NEWSPAPER
See This Just In, Page 2
Utilities’ upgrades: $150M over
Customers’ share of computer costs scrutinized
BY AMY LANE
CAPITOL CORRESPONDENT
LANSING — Michigan’s two
largest energy companies have
taken on the biggest computer upgrades in their histories — projects that will cost at least $153 million more than expected.
The cost of the upgrades is likely
to come under
scrutiny as the
utilities
ask
Why did it cost so
customers to
much? Page 32.
pay for at least
Who were the
some of the exvendors?
penses.
Page 32.
The two projects replace aging spiderwebs of
systems that make up the guts of
ANSWERS
DTE Energy Co. and CMS Energy Corp.
operations — areas such as financial management, purchasing, human resources, work management, even customer billing in
CMS’ case.
DTE finished its upgrade last
year for $383 million, compared
with an original cost of $263 million approved by the DTE board in
2003. Early cost estimates were
$150 million to $175 million — figures that didn’t include contingencies or reflect subsequent changes
in the project’s course, the company said.
CMS Energy’s project is scheduled to go live this summer at a final cost of about $175 million, compared with the $142 million
originally budgeted.
See Costs, Page 32
Catching
creatives
Detroit group gets grant to
attract 1,000 design pros
BY SHERRI BEGIN
CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
WILLIAM PUGLIANO
Tom Violante Jr. says a recent $4.5 million expansion project at Holiday Market in Royal Oak was driven
by the growth of condominium developments close to the store.
Bagging profits
High-end grocers expand despite stale economy
BY NANCY KAFFER
Holiday Market’s new cooking school is a lavish and spacious second-story loft lined with
professional-looking ranges and filled with
butcher-block tables and a broad demonstration counter.
The school, named Mirepoix after the mix
of vegetables that’s the base of many French
dishes, is just one part of a $4.5 million expansion that’s added a loading dock, additional
parking and has enlarged quarters for the
store’s catering operation. It also includes
such amenities as a larger, airy produce section, an expanded bakery counter and a center section, dubbed Du Jour, that prepares
fresh fare ranging from entrees to pasta to
chopped salads.
Expansion was inevitable for the Royal
Oak institution, said Tom Violante Jr., who
runs the store with sister Gina and brotherin-law Craig Mangold. It became a necessity
when condominium developments started
See Grocers, Page 32
Alberto Ibargüen’s “aha!” moment on how to
help transform Detroit’s economy came during
a conversation with General Motors Corp. CEO
Rick Wagoner.
Ibargüen, the president of the Miami-based
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, was in Detroit for a foundation board meeting and sought
out Wagoner to talk with him
about Detroit’s future.
“When (Wagoner) said design might be a major continuing area of interest in Detroit, I thought, ‘Aha! That
might be an area where a
foundation could do some
work,’ ” Ibargüen said.
The foundation convened
Design Detroit, a group of creIbargüen
ative organizations and economic-development groups and gave it a
$200,000 planning grant to inspire strategies to
attract up to 1,000 creative professionals to live
in Detroit. Ibargüen said the foundation is having informal discussions with other funders
and is open to helping fund the execution of the
effort once a strategy is in place.
“What if in the U.S., Detroit design became
like New Orleans jazz?” he said.
The Knight Foundation strives to back initiatives that leverage talent and resources in each
of the 26 U.S. cities it funds, Ibargüen said.
See Creatives, Page 33
IAC, Huron Capital are
among the winners,
BAE awaits
expansion decision,
Page 11
Page 3
3/21/2008
5:43 PM
Page 1
Page 2
THIS JUST IN
■ From Page 1
New race for Grand Prix
A third racing series has been
added for the reborn Detroit Belle
Isle Grand Prix on Labor Day Weekend.
The SCCA Pro Racing Speed World
Challenge GT Championship will be
run for 50 minutes on Aug. 31,
with practice and qualifying over
the two prior days. The 22-25 cars
expected to race are productionmodel Cadillacs, Corvettes, Dodge
Vipers, Ford Mustang Cobras and
Porsche 911 GT3s.
The Grand Prix is set for Aug.
29-31 and features American Le
Mans Series and IndyCar Series
races. Details are at www.detroitgp.com.
— Bill Shea
RFPs sought for block grants
The Detroit Planning and Development Department plans to reissue a
request for proposals for community-development
block-grant
funding in light of the Detroit City
Council’s vote last week to rescind
a board residency requirement.
The new requirement that more
than half a nonprofit’s board
members be Detroit residents
drew a strong outcry from more
than 100 nonprofits deemed ineligible for the federal funds because
March 24, 2008
of the mandate.
The city likely will issue the
new RFP next month, conforming
to U.S. Department of Urban Housing
requirements that it keep a level
playing field for all grant applications, said Thomasina Tucker, executive manager for financial and
resource management for the
Planning and Development Department.
Proposals previously deemed
ineligible because of the residency
requirement will be considered
for funding, she said. But the new
RFP will also give nonprofits that
hadn’t previously applied an opportunity to do so.
— Sherri Begin
Proposed annexation faces
court, legislative action
A plan to move 414 acres — and
a proposed $800 million development — out of Northville Township and into Livonia is now subject to both a court hearing and
action by the state Senate.
The state House on Wednesday
passed a bill to prohibit annexation of property from any charter
township with more than 20,000
residents. Sponsor Rep. Mark Corriveau, D-Northville, said he hopes
the Senate will pass a version
soon to expedite the process and
stop the pending Livonia annexation.
A May court date has been set
in a lawsuit claiming the seven
renters who live on the property to
be annexed are not living there
legally and did not have the right
to petition for the annexation action.
Bloomfield Hills-based Real Estate Interests Group Inc. and Livonia-based Schostak Bros. & Co. Inc.
proposed a mixed-use project for
the former Northville Psychiatric Hospital site.
Developers and Northville
Township have disagreed on the
density of retail on the site and the
cost to clean up the property.
— Daniel Duggan
Bond firm closes $1.7B deal
Detroit-based Siebert Brandford
Shank & Co. L.L.C. has closed on its
largest municipal bond to date, a
$1.7 billion offering in March in
general obligation bonds by the
state of California.
The company was the senior
manager on a deal that involved 66
bond firms on either the buy or
sell side. What made the deal unusual was that to save on up-front
costs to the state, the bonds were
sold without insurance.
— Tom Henderson
New franchising president
at Real Estate One
Real Estate One has named Dennis
Pearsall president of the company’s
franchising operation. He replaces
Genny Conrad, who is retiring.
The Southfield-based residential real estate company has 38
franchise offices in Michigan and
39
corporate-owned
offices.
Pearsall will now oversee support
and outreach for the franchised offices. He will report to Richard, Stuart and Dan Elsea.
Pearsall joined Real Estate One
in July 2005 when he sold four
Re/Max offices in Ann Arbor,
Chelsea, Milan and Saline to Real
Estate One.
— Daniel Duggan
Detroit retirement system sues
Bear Stearns over buyout price
The Bear Stearns Cos. Inc. is being sued by the Police and Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit, which asked a judge to halt
its planned buyout for $2 per
share by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
“The sale price does not reflect
the value of Bear Stearns,” and
“shareholders are being shabbily
treated given that the transaction
was not designed to maximize or
even salvage their equity,” the
Police and Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit said in a
complaint in Delaware Chancery
Court in Wilmington, cited in a
Bloomberg report. The system
owns 13,500 shares in Bear.
Company directors are dutybound to “effectively expose Bear
Stearns to the marketplace in an
effort to create an active and open
auction,” the fund’s lawyers contend in court papers.
—Investment News
Zoo bill wins state approval
A bill aimed at allowing
Wayne, Oakland and Macomb
counties to form bodies that
could support the Detroit Zoo is on
its way to Gov. Jennifer
Granholm’s expected signature,
after passing the Legislature last
week.
Senate Bill 1135, sponsored by
Gilda
Jacobs,
D-Huntington
Woods, enables any of the state’s
counties to form individual zoo
authorities that, with local voter
approval, could levy a tax of up to
0.1 mill on property in the county.
Each county authority could
levy a tax for up to 20 years to provide revenue that would go to the
zoo.
—Amy Lane
CORRECTIONS
䡲
On the March 17 list of Largest Michigan Professional Sports
Teams, Comerica Bank should have been listed as a major corporate
sponsor of the Detroit Tigers.
3/21/2008
5:33 PM
Page 1
March 24, 2008
Page 3
Rival
Blues bills
emerge
Defense contractor
may expand locally
Senator drops
high-risk pool
BAE Systems ramps up vehicle prototypes
BY JAY GREENE
AND AMY LANE
LANSING — Sen. Tom George, RKalamazoo, surprised many last week
when he proposed to grant a subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield of
Michigan the right to sell automobile,
life and other insurance products in
exchange for a requirement that the
Blues pay $100 million into a Charitable and Social Mission Fund that
would provide subsidies to people
who buy individual
health insurance.
George, who is
George
chairman of the
Senate Health Policy Committee, also
had another surprise: He didn’t include in his plan a provision that
would allow the Blues to create a
statewide high-risk health insurance
pool.
A package of bills
approved by the state
House of Representatives in October inWhat Tom
cluded the high-risk
George’s
pool for people denied
bills would
coverage because of
give to and
medical conditions. It
require of
did not include the
the Blues.
Page 31.
$100 million charitable fund.
“The issue that becomes apparent is that the high-risk
pool, with the restructuring of the
Michigan economy, is going to have
to be included in this legislation,”
said Sen. Jason Allen, R-Traverse
City, a member of George’s committee.
“When you take a look at the thousands of employees at General Motors
Corp. that aren’t there anymore … a
pool has got to be put together for the
people who fall through the cracks,”
Allen said.
Allen said he is working with colleagues on alternatives that could be
presented.
Another committee member, Sen.
Gilda Jacobs, D-Huntington Woods,
said she thinks “we probably do need
this high-risk pool.”
But George said he’s not sure a pool
is justified and instead calls for the
state Office of Financial and Insurance
Regulation to issue a report in three
years on the health of the individual
market.
“I don’t think the evidence is sufficient at this point,” George said.
“Maybe it turns out that they’re right.
But there’s no rush to do this now.”
George introduced his substitutes
to House Bills 5282-5284 after holding
ABOUT
BY CHAD HALCOM
INDEX
Taking Stock: Rental
demand for manufactured
housing boosts revenue
for Sun Communities Inc.
Page 4.
Retail outlook: Studies
paint a conflicting picture
for Michigan retailers in
2008. Page 28.
Come back, Al Roker:
State expects film bills
will bring in an added $50
million in revenue this
year. Page 30.
The next few weeks may seem inordinately busy
for defense contractor BAE Systems and its growing
Southeast Michigan offices.
The company built a prototype last month in the
highly competitive Joint Light Tactical Vehicle project. And BAE and its rival bidders must submit proposals by April 14 for the $15 billion contract to design and produce roughly 160,000 ground vehicles.
Also expected by the end of March is a decision on
where to locate a planned company expansion that
would add 150-300 positions in BAE’s Ground Systems division. The Sterling Heights facility is in contention for that along with locations in Santa Clara,
Calif.; Aniston, Ala.; and BAE’s division headquarters in York, Pa.
Meanwhile, BAE also completed its prototype
RG33L Mine Resistant Recovery Maintenance Vehicle in late February. It is part of the Mine Resistant
Ambush Protected, or MRAP, line of vehicles, now
heavily deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The new vehicle has the same hull design to protect personnel from improvised explosive devices
and enemy fire but is also outfitted with a crane,
hitch and winch cable to extract damaged vehicles
that can’t drive away from a combat zone.
“In my experience, it’s going to be in the first six
weeks or so of seeing an (unsolicited product) that
you’ll get a response on the level of interest,” Bill
Smith, director of business development at BAE’s local offices, said about the vehicle.
Smith said BAE invested its own research and de-
THE BILLS
See Blues, Page 31
CRAIN’S
NATHAN SKID/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
The RG33L Mine Resistant Recovery Maintenance Vehicle is
one of several prototypes BAE has in the hopper.
These organizations appear in this
week’s Crain’s Detroit Business:
GROWTH AT BAE SYSTEMS
Defense contractor BAE Systems opened its Sterling
Heights location in 2003.
䡲 The Sterling Heights operation has grown from 10
employees in 2004 to 73 as of last week.
䡲 By month’s end, the company is expected to
announce whether a planned expansion will go to
Sterling Heights or BAE facilities in California, Alabama
or Pennsylvania. The expansion would add 150-300
positions.
BAE’s mine-resistant vehicles are so large it’s
like driving a house down the road. Take a video
ride and hear a BAE engineer describe the truck
at www.crainsdetroit.com/multimedia.
See BAE, Page 33
VC boosts WorkForce
Livonia software company to add sales, marketing staff
marketing and its sales force,” said
Ray Boone, an Orix Venture principal. “We’ll be able to help them
WorkForce Software Inc. of Livonia there.”
plans to use an investment of $5.5
WorkForce was founded in 1999
million in venture capital to ramp by CEO Kevin Choksi; Mike Knisup the sales and marter, the chief technology
keting staff for its
officer; and Kathy Canpayroll-management
non, the implementation
software.
director. It provides softOn the Grow is a
It predicts that inware to manage payroll
feature that will
creased sales will appear in most issues
processes and oversee
boost revenue from highlighting growing
compliance with state
$10 million last year companies, large and
and federal regulations
small. Know of a
to $17 million in 2009.
and with union rules.
Orix
Venture company you think
In 2006, WorkForce beFinance, the venture- Crain’s should write
gan offering a hosted onabout? Contact
capital arm of Dallas- Managing Editor
line version. “That’s gobased Orix USA Corp., Andrew Chapelle at
ing to be the big growth
an investment-bank- [email protected].
area for us,” said Choksi.
ing firm with $4 bilChoksi said the comlion in assets, announced in Janu- pany was funded at its inception by
ary that it had made the $5.5 personal assets, including home-eqmillion investment.
uity loans. “We went many months
“WorkForce had developed a without a paycheck,” he said.
very strong technology that enWorkForce was profitable almost
ables them to land very big cus- from the start and has been growtomers, but the company has been ing fast in recent years. It grew revunderstaffed as far as its direct enue 221 percent from 2005 to 2007,
BY TOM HENDERSON
OntheGrow
Video profile:
Jadi Inc., which develops
navigation systems for
robots and unmanned
vehicles, doesn’t just
deal in abstract concepts
— it has robots rolling
around an arena. To take
a look and hear from
Jadi’s CEO, go to
www.crainsdetroit.
com/smalltalk.
has been named to Software Magazine’s Software 500, the Inc. 5000
and Entrepreneur’s Hot 500.
The company
has 75 employees
and plans to hire
25 more by the
end of the year.
Choksi said
that last year he
and
his
cofounders decided
an influx of capital was needed if
Choksi
they wanted to
continue to increase the business
and to challenge market leader
Massachusetts-based Kronos Inc.,
which had 2007 revenue of $662 million.
“To put a dent in their market
share was going to take more than
internally financed capital,” said
Choksi. “And we needed more visibility in the market.”
In July, they hired a Californiabased investment-banking firm,
Seven Hills Group L.L.C., to find an inSee WorkForce, Page 33
Al Roker Entertainment Inc. . . . . . . 30
All-American Football League . . . . . 29
Amherst Partners L.L.C. . . . . . . . . . . 1
Association of Businesses
Advocating Tariff Equity . . . . . . . . 32
Association of Corporate Growth . . 16
BAE Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan . 3
Borders Group Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Butzel Long P.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Carhartt Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Center for Computer Forensics . . . . 28
Champion Enterprises . . . . . . . . . . . 4
CMS Energy Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Data Recovery Group . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Design Detroit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
DTE Energy Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Edcor Data Services . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Foley & Lardner L.L.P. . . . . . . . . . . 11
General Dynamics Land Systems . . 33
Henniges Automotive . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Hiller’s Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Holiday Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Huron Capital Partners L.L.C. . . . . . 15
InfoTronics Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
International Automotive
Components Group . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Marcus and Millichap Real Estate
Investment Services . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Michigan Film Office . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Michigan State University . . . . . . . 16
Michigan Public Service
Commission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Michigan Retailers Association . . . 28
Nino Salvaggio International
Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Noble International Ltd. . . . . . . . . . 14
NSF International Inc. . . . . . . . . . . 13
Oakland University . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Papa Joe’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Plum Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Seneca Partners Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Spectrum Computer Forensics
and Risk Management L.L.C. . . . . 28
Strength Capital Partners L.L.C. . . . 13
Sun Communities Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . 4
University of Michigan . . . . . . . . . . 16
Valassis Communications Inc. . . . . 15
Walsh College . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Wayne State University . . . . . . . . . 16
Westborn Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
WorkForce Software Inc. . . . . . . . . . 3
Wynnchurch Capital . . . . . . . . . . . 14
BANKRUPTCIES . . . . . . . . . 6
BRIEFLY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
BUSINESS DIARY . . . . . . . 22
CALENDAR . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
CAPITOL BRIEFINGS . . . . . . 6
CLASSIFIED ADS . . . . . . . . 26
KEITH CRAIN . . . . . . . . . . . 8
LETTERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
OPINION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
OTHER VOICES . . . . . . . . . . 9
PEOPLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
RUMBLINGS . . . . . . . . . . . 34
WEEK IN REVIEW . . . . . . . 34
3/21/2008
3:49 PM
Page 1
Page 4
March 24, 2008
TAKING STOCK
NEWS ABOUT DETROIT AREA PUBLIC COMPANIES
We are pleased to announce
Rental demand boosts revenue
for Sun Communities Inc.
the affiliation of
Steven R. Wujczyk
First Vice President, Investments
with our
BY DANIEL DUGGAN
Dearborn Branch
330 Town Center Drive | Suite 100
Dearborn, MI 48126
800-962-9531
[email protected]
©2008 Raymond James & Associates, Inc., member New York Stock Exchange/SIPC 08-BR35K-0003 EN 3/08
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C
.
n
e
t
While sales of manufactured
homes have been declining, demand for rental units and rent-toown programs brought increased
revenue for Sun Communities Inc. in
2007.
The Southfield-based real estate
investment trust owns, operates,
develops and finances manufactured home communities in the
Midwest and Southeast.
Occupancy of its rental homes
was up by 14.1 percent in 2007 over
2006. The new and preowned
homes sales increased by 45
percent in 2007
over 2006.
CEO
Gary
Shiffman attributes growth to
increased
demand for affordable housing.
“The demand Shiffman
for affordable
housing is perhaps best measured
for us by applications for living in
our communities,” he said during
a conference call last week. “In ’07,
applications to live in our communities exceeded 14,500, which was
almost 50 percent greater than the
’06 applications.”
Revenue increased to $236 million for 2007, compared with $227.8
million for 2006. However, the
company posted a 2007 net loss of
$16.6 million.
Funds from operations increased from $1.72 per share in
2006 to $2.24 in 2007.
FFO, a key indicator for REITs,
is an accounting standard that reflects net income plus adjustments
such as depreciation and amortization.
Sun’s price per share has been
increasing slightly and hovered
near $20 last week, ending at
$19.76. Its two-year high came in
March 2006 at $36.30 and was at
$30.70 on Oct. 31, when it started a
slide that didn’t stop until January.
The rental component of Sun’s
operations put it in a better situation than the companies that are
selling manufactured housing.
Troy-based Champion Enterprises
(NYSE: CHB) posted a $6 million
loss in the fourth quarter, with its
main revenue drivers being key
European acquisitions.
The bleeding may have stopped,
however.
Laurie Van Raemdonck, vice
president of investor relations for
Champion, said the loose underwriting that led up to the national
subprime lending problem had
been pushing people into site-built
homes rather than the manufactured homes they would normally
be buying.
With the now-tightened lending
standards, she said, consumers
may show more interest in the
manufactured homes, which cost the industry, said Mike O’Brien,
much less.
COO of the Arlington, Va.-based
“With some of the more creative industry trade group Manufactured
financing no longer available, Housing Institute.
maybe that will level the playing
“You really have to know what
field for manufactured housing,” you’re doing to make it work, so
she said.
it’s not something that a lot of the
Shiffman also pointed to afford- land-lease community owners are
ability as a bright spot for the in- geared towards doing,” he said.
dustry. At an average of $40.13 per “But Sun has figured out how to do
square foot, manit right.”
ufactured housing
Lehman Brothers
is nearly half the
lowered the price
cost of site-built
target for Sun by
homes at $92 per
$2 per share on
square foot.
the possibility of
“So we seek to
future
writecapture a cusdowns by Southtomer that can
field-based Origen
only afford our
Financial,
in
products,”
he
which Sun is an
said.
investor. Origen
Sun’s newfound
is a REIT that
financial strength
originates
and
isn’t shared by
services manusimilar
REITs,
factured-housing
which had little or
loans. In the
no FFO growth in
fourth quarter it
Laurie Van Raemdonck,
2007.
posted a $39 milChampion Enterprises
Florida-based
lion loss comAmerican
Land
pared with a $2
Lease
(NYSE:
million
profit
ANL) posted a 34.5
during the same
percent FFO decrease for 2007 period of 2006.
compared with 2006, and New JerHowever, Sun’s core business of
sey-based UMH Properties (NYSE: collecting rent on sites has been
UMH) posted a 31.9 percent de- very solid, said Lehman Brothers
crease.
analyst David Harris.
Chicago-based Equity LifeStyle
“Their ability to raise rent has
Properties (NYSE: ELS) showed 12 remained strong and they’ve kept
percent FFO growth for 2007 com- expenses down,” he said. “We look
pared with 55 percent growth for at their core earnings as very sol2006.
id.”
Sun’s ability to rent units to conDaniel Duggan: (313) 446-0414;
sumers makes it fairly unusual in [email protected]
some of the
“ With
more creative
financing no longer
available, maybe
that will level the
playing field for
manufactured
housing.
”
STREET TALK
THIS WEEK’S STOCK TOTALS: 23 GAINERS, 42 LOSERS, 9 UNCHANGED
CDB’S TOP PERFORMERS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Flagstar Bancorp Inc.
ArvinMeritor Inc.
Pulte Homes Inc.
Taubman Centers Inc.
Domino's Pizza Inc.
Kaydon Corp.
Citizens Republic Bancorp Inc.
Champion Enterprises Inc.
Asset Acceptance Capital Corp.
Ford Motor Co.
CDB’S LOW PERFORMERS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Borders Group Inc.
Somanetics Corp.
Clarkston Financial Corp.
Community Central Bank Corp.
TechTeam Global Inc.
Amerigon Inc.
Oxford Bank Corp.
Rockwell Medical Technologies
Federal Screw Works
Energy Conversion Devices Inc.
3/20
CLOSE
3/14
CLOSE
PERCENT
CHANGE
$7.87
12.36
14.67
54.93
14.51
44.51
13.22
9.62
9.13
5.62
$5.92
10.66
12.67
48.42
13.36
41.69
12.5
9.11
8.68
5.39
32.94
15.95
15.79
13.45
8.61
6.76
5.76
5.60
5.18
4.27
3/20
CLOSE
3/14
CLOSE
PERCENT
CHANGE
$5.07
12.61
6.00
5.50
8.43
15.36
25.00
5.90
8.20
25.19
$8.51
18.84
8.45
6.19
9.10
16.45
26.60
6.27
8.60
26.39
-40.42
-33.07
-28.99
-11.15
-7.36
-6.63
-6.02
-5.90
-4.65
-4.55
Source: Bloomberg News. From a list of publicly owned companies with headquarters
in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw or Livingston counties. Note: Stocks trading
at less than $5 are not included.
DBpageAD.qxd
3/12/2008
4:40 PM
Page 1
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THAT THE ICE CREAM PLANT
BURNED DOWN.
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Responsibility. What’s your policy?
© 2008 Liberty Mutual Group.
3/21/2008
5:45 PM
Page 1
Page 6
March 24, 2008
Deal with tribes revives revenue stream
The tribes had halted
LANSING — State economic-development offipayments in 2004. But
cials are cheering the
under the settlement,
settlement of a long-runtribal revenue-sharing
ning legal dispute and
will resume and the state
renewal of a key revenue
will also receive about
stream to the state.
$26 million in previous
Gov.
Jennifer
payments that the tribes
Granholm, the Little River
had put into escrow.
Band of Ottawa Indians
It’s good news to the
and the Little Traverse Bay
Michigan Economic DevelBands of Odawa Indians on
opment Corp., where tribFriday announced the
al casino money pays for
Amy Lane
resolution of a federal
a variety of MEDC activilawsuit that involved the
ties and nearly a third of
tribes’ obligation to share casino MEDC employees’ salaries and
revenue with the state.
benefits.
Capitol
B r i e fi ng s
The revenue has fortified state
economic-development operations
and provided money not subject to
legislative appropriation. But the
casino-revenue pot has dwindled
after the tribes halted payments in
response to the Michigan Bureau of
State Lottery’s 2003 launch of its
Club Keno game.
The tribes said the game, played
in bars and restaurants statewide,
violated their gambling exclusivity under 1998 compacts and thus
ended the requirement that they
share revenue with the state.
The state contended that Club
Keno is neither an electronic game
of chance as defined under the
compacts nor a commercial casino
game that, within the compacts’
meaning, could nullify revenue
sharing. The state said the game is
just an expansion of a lottery game
that existed since 1990.
The MEDC sued the tribes in
2005 and won a 2007 ruling in the
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, which the tribes
appealed to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals in Cincinnati.
In a news release, tribal officials
said they were pleased to bring the
matter to a close and said the settlement allows the tribes and state
to work together.
Under the settlement:
■ The percentage of slot machine
revenues paid by the tribes will
drop from 8 percent to 6 percent.
■ Gaming exclusivity will no
longer be measured statewide but
will be based on a more limited,
multi-county area for each tribe.
■ Lottery and other similar
state activities will not be considered to be new commercial gaming
unless they involve large-scale use
of electronic machines.
■ If new commercial gaming
does occur within one of the tribes’
market areas, it will no longer result in permanent termination of
payments. Instead, payments are
suspended and can be reinstated at
a reduced rate if the tribe’s casino
business continues to grow.
The changes to the revenuesharing agreement were made by
amending the tribes’ compacts.
The settlement agreement also
provides for the state to get about
half of the $52 million that the
tribes had put into escrow during
the dispute.
Bridget Beckman, MEDC public
information officer, said some of
the escrowed amount will be put
toward
maintaining
current
MEDC operations. The use of the
remainder will be discussed with
the MEDC’s executive committee
in the next couple of weeks.
The lawsuit settlement doesn’t
automatically resolve a revenuesharing issue with a separate,
southwest Michigan tribe. The
state is supposed to receive an 8
percent revenue share from the
new Four Winds Casino Resort operated by the Pokagon Band of
Potawatomi Indians. But instead of
sending the state its first payment,
due Dec. 1, the tribe put an estimated $3.9 million into escrow as
it awaited the outcome of the federal lawsuit.
Comings & goings
David Nyberg, former press secretary for the House Republican caucus, has been named resource policy specialist at the Michigan United
Conservation Clubs. He replaces Erin
McDonough, who has become director of the MUCC’s new Institute for
Conservation Education.
Amy Lane: (517) 371-5355,
[email protected]
BANKRUPTCIES
The following businesses filed for
Chapter 7 or 11 protection in U.S.
Bankruptcy Court in Detroit March
14-20. Under Chapter 11, a company
files for reorganization. Chapter 7 involves total liquidation.
Braun Construction Inc., 15050 Reid
Road, Romeo, voluntary Chapter 7.
Assets: $52,925; liabilities: $ 326,269
Comprehensive Medical Care P.L.L.C.,
5710 Bella Rose Blvd., Clarkston, voluntary Chapter 7. Assets and liabilities not available.
Performax Physical Therapy P.C.,
29100 Gateway Blvd., Flat Rock, voluntary Chapter 11. Assets and liabilities
not available.
Winstar Communications L.L.C., 333
W. Fort St., Detroit, voluntary Chapter 11. Assets and liabilities not available.
— Compiled by Jonathan Eppley
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March 24, 2008
OPINION
Insurance debate
must be thorough
or months, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has been
lobbying for changes in state law governing how its
rates are approved, what products its for-profit Accident
Fund subsidiary can sell and how medical care for highrisk individuals is paid for.
The state House passed a package of bills last fall seemingly written by the nonprofit Blues themselves.
But the bills now rest in the Senate committee chaired by
physician-lawmaker Tom George, R-Kalamazoo, who last
week offered his own proposals. (See story, Page 3.)
George’s version doesn’t include one thing the Blues really
want: a high-risk pool to cover the costs of caring for individuals with serious medical conditions. Blue Cross would run the
pool at its own expense, but its competitors would finance it after the first two years. Without that change, Blue Cross would
have to continue, by law, to serve as an insurer of last resort,
taking everybody, even people considered uninsurable in other states.
George says he’s not sure such a pool is needed; he wants to
hold additional hearings through April 30. But lawmakers supporting Blue Cross are pressuring the Senate to act.
George should stand his ground. This debate is important.
More and more individuals will be paying for their own health
insurance. Lawmakers should resist temptation — and lobbying — to rush new laws through.
F
Design idea a creative stroke
Southeast Michigan could use some bold strokes to dig its
way out of its economic malaise.
General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner may have inspired
such a stroke when he met with Alberto Ibargüen, the Miamibased president of the Knight Foundation. (See story, Page 1.)
Wagoner told Ibargüen that he thought design could be a
big part of Detroit’s future. What if Detroit became known for
design like New Orleans is known for jazz?
One way to make it happen quickly could be the still-formative plans to lure 1,000 designers to live and work in Detroit.
Fashion design, graphic design, advertising design, auto design — you name it. Detroit would hang out the welcome sign
with some kind of incentive.
Just what the incentives would be are still in flux, but nonprofits, the city’s Detroit Economic Growth Corp. and other
key players are working on the details.
This is just the kind of bold stroke the region needs. Detroit’s creative community may have been overshadowed by
its manufacturing muscle in recent years, but it has a strong
design legacy and could be synonymous with a strong American design ethic again.
LETTERS
City can support mass transit
Editor:
I read the March 10 article about
the need for more retail in Detroit
(“Downtown Detroit needs more retail”), and I took issue with comments about Detroit not having the
density to support mass transit.
Detroit, while its population is
down 50 percent from its peak in
the ’50s, still has a far higher density than many other cities across the
nation that have mass transit. Minneapolis/St. Paul, New Orleans,
Portland and even Atlanta are
smaller in area and population. But
all have streetcars, trams, and, in
Atlanta’s case, a subway system.
The wide avenues in Detroit are
ideally suited for rebuilding a
streetcar-tram system. Start with
the main arterial streets radiating
out from downtown and then connect spokes (say at each mile road).
In no time the city will have a masstransit system back in place. And if
this is done now, then people moving into the city in the future will
Crain’s Detroit Business
welcomes letters to the editor.
All letters will be considered for
publication, provided they are
signed and do not defame
individuals or organizations.
Letters may be edited for length
and clarity.
Write: Editor, Crain’s Detroit
Business, 1155 Gratiot Ave.,
Detroit, MI 48207-2997.
E-mail: [email protected]
not even mind the loss of a lane or
two of traffic for the trams.
Detroit is more than 300 years
old, and it will be here 300 years
from now. People need to start
preparing for the future.
I lived in Detroit as a kid in the
’70s and now reside in Chicago.
One reason I moved here as a
young adult was because of the
mass-transit system.
Edward Embach
Mayor should stay
Editor:
I voted for Kwame Kilpatrick,
and I would appreciate it if he waits
and does not resign or run for the
hills, because I voted for him both
times. (“After the speech, what’s
next?” March 17.) I say ride it out,
let them force him out, but he’d better not leave quietly.
Retha Peterson
Detroit
Get rid of them all
Editor:
Until today, I’ve been too disgusted to even write a letter. Barbara-Rose Collins’ comments have
pushed me over that line. (“After
the speech, what’s next?”; “Nonprofits fume; plan proposed to resume grants,” March 17)
Embarrassing behavior, unbelievable hubris from the mayor,
then no willingness to take any reSee Letters, Page 9
Chicago
KEITH CRAIN: Let’s all just keep on doing our jobs
This is going to be a heck of a
week. Major-league baseball will
begin once again, and we’re all
hoping for a great season from our
beloved Detroit Tigers. At the
same time, our Detroit Red Wings
and Detroit Pistons are both heading for their playoffs, the games
that are more exciting than the
season itself.
And by the time you read this,
Kym Worthy probably has held
her long-awaited press conference
to announce whether she would indict our Detroit mayor on criminal
charges.
The
announcement
was planned for late this
morning. Rest assured,
the news stories and commentary on her decision
will be front and center
in the local and national
media — newspapers,
newsweeklies, television,
radio, cable and the Internet. All the news media
will have a field day regardless of her decision.
It’s clear that half of Wayne
County’s population will
curse Kym Worthy for
making the wrong decision and half will praise
her for making the right
decision. Whatever her
decision, it will split the
county and certainly the
city. I give her high
marks for wading into a
no-win war, either way.
But regardless of what
happens, there will still
be months of further turmoil. We
all will have to learn to endure a
bit of chaos, uncertainty and political infighting. It’s been an interesting study in politics and the
lack of racial harmony in our community. Hopefully, we’ll all learn
something from this ordeal.
But business goes on, with or
without the functioning of our city
government on all eight cylinders.
The business community and the
nonprofits will have to keep doing
what they do best. Keep your head
down and try to do your job the
best that we all know how to do.
It’s fairly obvious that this is not
the best of times for our city and
all of Southeast Michigan.
If we were getting sympathy for
our economic woes before, we now
have become an embarrassment to
the rest of the country. Rest assured that the quickly resolved crisis in the New York governor’s office has not helped our case at all.
There is a lot to do and some
sports teams need our support, so I
guess we should put our head
down and keep working, regardless of what happens. It’s not going
to be pretty either way.
3/21/2008
9:50 AM
Page 1
March 24, 2008
Page 9
OTHER VOICES:Voluntary
cancer collaboration is best
:
Unless they travel out of
to use proton technology
state, Michigan cancer pafor his or her patients.
tients don’t have access to
But the commission is
the best radiation treatconsidering
standards
ment in the world — prothat would require creton-beam
therapy.
ation of a single, mandatWilliam Beaumont Hospied consortium involving
tals is working to change
the eight highest-volume
that through an effort incancer centers.
volving other major canRequiring competing
cer programs, physicians Kenneth Matzick hospitals to form a single,
across the state and a nastatewide
consortium
tional firm with expertise in devel- with no designated leader is unreoping, financing and managing alistic and unprecedented anyproton-beam centers.
where in the country. DisagreeMichigan’s Certificate of Need ment by any one hospital on
Commission has endorsed the idea location, leadership, equipment,
that, because of high cost, proton- research priorities or financial inbeam projects should be collaborative. We agree.
We are talking with both of
Michigan’s National Cancer Institute-designated
comprehensive
cancer centers and with the largest
cancer program on the state’s west
side about participating in the proton-beam facility. This includes collaboration in teaching and research, and opportunities for equity
ownership. And our CON application indicated we would credential
any qualified physician in the state
vestment would derail the process.
Effective business relationships
are built between willing partners,
not through government mandates.
ProCure Treatment Centers Inc.
approached Beaumont as a partner because of the reputation of
our physician specialists as leaders in radiation oncology innovation. Together, and with other cancer centers and physicians, we
could ensure a proton-beam center
is developed, constructed and
treating patients by 2010.
This would bring $159 million in
investment to Michigan’s economy, generating 400 construction
jobs and more than 100 positions
for physicists and other highly educated personnel. This promotes
our region’s life sciences sector
and transition to a knowledgebased economy, a goal of groups
such as Detroit Renaissance, the
Detroit Regional Chamber, Automation Alley and the Michigan
Economic Development Corp.
Along with jobs, it’s estimated that
people traveling here for proton
treatment would generate another
$22 million to $32 million in revenue for area businesses.
We support the commission’s responsibility to regulate health care
quality, access and cost. But overly stringent regulation can, in ef-
fect, deny patients the advanced
technology and treatment they
need, like proton therapy, while
impeding economic development
in the state’s fastest growing employment sector — health care.
We believe that mandatory, regulated collaboration — as specified
in the standards being considered
— is the wrong approach. We all
have a responsibility to bring proton cancer treatment to Michigan
as soon as possible for the benefit of
our state’s economy, and for the
sake of Michigan’s cancer patients.
Kenneth Matzick is president and
CEO of Beaumont Hospitals.
Our Clients
LETTERS CONTINUED
■ From Page 8
sponsibility for his actions; Sharon
McPhail on TV delivering ludicrous statements with conviction —
she definitely has a future in acting
(hopefully when no one else hires
her as an attorney); and now Barbara-Rose Collins is making uninformed, no, just plain stupid statements supporting the punishment
of organizations with non-Detroit
residents who are foolish enough to
volunteer their time on nonprofit
boards. If all of those board members resigned today, how would the
city residents who benefit from
those organizations fare?
Hopefully, business leaders both
in and out of Wayne County will
help the mayor make his decision
by speaking with their financial
voice: no funding for any city projects, no participation in any city
programs, no cooperation with
any city initiatives until Mayor
Kilpatrick resigns.
Barb Hendrickson
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Livonia
Build what they will buy
Editor:
Keith Crain’s recent editorial,
“The country is catching up with
us,” (March 17) hit many nails directly and fairly on the head. His
statement that Southeast Michigan’s economic problems are
largely due to the malaise of the
Detroit 3 auto companies is particularly relevant. While the other
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President
The Universal Cos.
Royal Oak
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DBpageAD.qxd
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March 24, 2008
Page 11
A CONVERSATION WITH
Winning team
Dave Chilingirian, Tara
Miceli and Mike Rumel
were the winners of the
first ACG Detroit Cup.
Page 16.
Steven
Hilfinger,
Foley & Lardner
L.L.P.
Steven Hilfinger helped open the
Detroit office of Chicago-based law
firm Foley & Lardner L.L.P. in 2000.
From 2002 to 2006, he was the office’s managing partner. He now is a
member of the firm’s mergers and acquisitions practice and is co-chair of
its automotive industry team. On
March 6, Hilfinger served on a panel
discussing hot-button M&A issues at
Foley’s seventh annual National Directors Institute in Chicago.
What role can a board of directors
play in the M&A process? A board
can help ensure a transaction makes
it to the close. A board can have an
acquisition committee to help the
CEO vet a transaction. Officers of a
company can fall in love with a deal.
They start pursuing a transaction, and
it takes on a momentum of its own.
The board can serve as a speed bump
to make sure the transaction fits with
the company’s objectives and that the
purchase price makes sense. It can
say: “What are the four or five things
this transaction is going to do for
us?” And make sure it’s faithful to
that list as the transaction proceeds.
At an Association for Corporate
Growth meeting last year on M&A
activity, one of the themes was “Too
much money is chasing too few
deals and multiples are out of
whack.” Now the talk is about a lack
of credit, deals are getting tough to
close, etc. The credit crunch in August has changed the picture, but
most of the changes affect large
transactions. There were a slew for
$1 billion or more where buyers just
walked away. But companies with,
say, revenue of $25 million to $500
million, have been impacted, but not
nearly to the same degree. Most private-equity money is still sitting out
there. They continued to raise money,
and they’ll need to invest it. It won’t
be the same volumes of ’07, because
the first eight months had such a
strong start, but it will be consistent.
What do you foresee in automotive? The auto market is not a good
snapshot of the national market. A
lot of automotive deals are distress
deals, either out of bankruptcy or for
other reasons. In auto, we’ll see
multiples of three to five times
earnings. In other industries — and
some of the published numbers tend
to be on the high side so it can be
hard to tell — you’ll probably get
multiples of six to eight.
Yet, looking at fourth-quarter earnings for area public companies, the
auto sector was one of the strongest.
The fourth-quarter rebound reflected
an optimism coming off the labor
deals. With what’s going on in the
economy and projected sales volumes,
I think this will be a tough year. The latter part of ’08 into ’09 will be better.
But we face a period of distress, particularly with plastics suppliers.
If you know someone
interesting you would
like Tom Henderson
to interview, call
(313) 446-0337 or
write thenderson
@crain.com.
finance
A lifetime of making deals
pieces of a German company in bankruptcy, Kelch
Gmbh & Co. GH, for $25 million.
“I got a call from the president of the Chinese Maalter “Bud” Aspatore is happy to accept chine Tool Association who said, ‘We’re thinking of
the first Crain’s Lifetime Achievement buying this company in Germany. Would you go
Award for mergers and acquisitions with over there and tell us whether we should buy it or
one very definite caveat: that it not be seen as akin not?’ ” recalled Aspatore.
to the Academy Awards’ Lifetime
He flew to Germany, toured the plant,
Achievement Award, where a doddertold the would-be buyer that the machineing, way-past-prime character is led
tool equipment was what they were lookout on stage to embarrassed applause.
ing for, hired lawyers and accountants
At 65, Aspatore is far from dodderand negotiated a deal with a government
ing. He’s been making deals at a
insolvency administrator.
steady rate, and he plans on wheeling
Aspatore said his favorite deal ever
and dealing on a global basis for the
was the 2005 sale out of bankruptcy of
foreseeable future.
Livonia-based Awrey Bakeries Inc. to Illi“If I’m not busy, I’m not happy. I
nois-based Hilco Equity Management L.L.C.
like what I’m doing,” said Aspatore,
for $25 million.
chairman and co-founder in 1995 of
“It was one of our smallest deals,” said
Birmingham-based Amherst Partners
Aspatore, who represented one of the
L.L.C., an investment banking firm
lenders, Comerica Bank. “But at the end of
that does evaluations and financings,
the day, the bank got out whole, all the
Walter “Bud”
advises private and public companies
unsecured creditors got out whole, the
Aspatore, chairman
on mergers and acquisitions and spe- of Amherst
buyer kept the business here and the emcializes in turnarounds.
ployees kept their jobs.”
Partners L.L.C.
Since its founding, Amherst, coSteven Hilfinger, a partner in the Defounded by Scott Eisenberg, has sutroit office of the Chicago-based law firm
pervised more than 100 transactions
of Foley & Lardner L.L.P. and a member of
for an aggregate value of more than
its M&A group, has worked on numerous
$2 billion.
transactions with Amherst and nominatGlobal? An expert on the machineed Aspatore for the award.
tool industry, Aspatore recently has
“His 40 years of experience in running
advised on five acquisitions around
businesses and buying and selling busithe world by Chinese toolmakers,
nesses is a great combination, and he’s a
building on a practice that was way
world-recognized expert in the machineBud Aspatore: Why
ahead of the curve — his first trans- playing nicely pays off. tool business,” he said. “He’s a rare inaction with a Chinese firm was in www.crainsdetroit.com/ vestment banker in that he understands
1975, when while still with the Bendix
multimedia.
operational issues as well as investment
Corp. he negotiated the purchase of
issues. He brings a deep understanding to
Kunming Metrology, which made machines to mea- the table of plant-floor operations, and that’s not
sure parts off-line.
something every investment banker has.”
“I beat both the Colonel and McDonald’s there,”
Hilfinger said another advantage Aspatore has
he said, referring to KFC.
is that, because of his age, older owners of compaOne of those recent deals was the purchase by
See Aspatore, Page 12
Harbin Measuring & Cutting Tool Group Co. Ltd. of
BY TOM HENDERSON
W
Crain’s Detroit
Business, in
cooperation with
the Association for
Corporate GrowthSoutheast Michigan
Chapter, bestowed
its first M&A Awards
on March 13 at
the Troy Marriott.
The awards
recognize
the best deals and
deal makers
of 2007.
Lifetime
Achievement Award
Other winners and finalists
Best deal,
$25 million and under
Best deal,
$25 million-$100 million
Best deal,
more than $100 million
Deal Maker
of the Year
Winner
■ Caparo Group plc, London.
Estimated $15 million purchase
of Voestalpine Polynorm Inc.,
Novi, Page 12.
Winner:
■ Strength Capital Partners
L.L.C., Birmingham; $80.5
million purchase of PM
Construction & Rehabilitation,
rePipe-Texas and rePipe-Calif,
Page 13.
Winner:
Winner:
■ International Automotive
Components Group North
America Inc., Dearborn.
Acquisition of the carpet and
acoustics business of Collins &
Aikman Corp. for $126 million,
Page 14.
■ Huron Capital Partners L.L.C.,
Detroit, Page 15.
Finalists
■ BlackEagle Partners L.L.C.,
Bloomfield Hills; $23 million
purchase of Rockford Products,
Rockford, Ill., Page 12.
■ Edcor Data Services, Pontiac.
Purchase of Benefitsource,
Monroe, Page 13.
Finalists:
■ NSF International Inc., Ann
Arbor; $43 million purchase of
United Kingdom-based
Checkmate International plc, Page
13.
■ Wynnchurch Capital,
Bloomfield Hills. Purchase of
GDX Automotive, Farmington
Hills, and Metzeler Automotive,
Madison Heights, to create
Henniges Automotive, Page 14.
Finalists:
■ Noble International Ltd., Troy;
$300 million purchase of
Tailored Blank Arcelor, a
subsidiary of Luxemborg-based
Arcelor SA,
Page 14.
■ Valassis Communications Inc.,
Livonia; $1.2 billion purchase of
Windsor, Conn.-based Advo Inc.,
Page 15.
Finalists:
■ Arthur Dudley, shareholder,
Butzel Long P.C., Detroit, Page
15.
■ Seneca Partners Inc.,
Birmingham, Page 16.
DETROIT BUSINESS MAIN 03-24-08 A 12,13 CDB
3/21/2008
9:48 AM
Page 1
Page 12
March 24, 2008
FOCUS: FINANCE
Aspatore:
A lifetime
of dealing
■ From Page 11
nies facing generational or
transitional issues trust him.
“Bud can relate well to the
owner who’s stepping down or
who’s selling within the family. He can gain their trust. It’s
hard to let the reins go, and
when the window of opportunity opens, sometimes you
have to do a fair amount of
convincing that it’s a good
time to let go. Bud is good at
that.”
“Bud is masterful at making people feel comfortable,”
said Eisenberg.
Prior to founding Amherst,
Aspatore was president of Onset BIDCO Inc. Before that, he
served as president of publicly
traded Cross & Trecker Corp.,
where he completed more
than 12 transactions for a total
value of $400 million, including the company’s sale in 1991
to Wisconsin-based Giddings &
Lewis.
Tom Henderson: (313) 4460337, [email protected]
Best deal, $25 million and under
Finalist: BlackEagle Partners L.L.C.
Winner: Caparo Group plc
hen P&M Corporate Finance
L.L.C. began marketing Novibased Voestalpine Polynorm
Inc., it found several interested buyers, but the buyers mostly were interested in Voestalpine’s contracts, making a large number of layoffs likely.
But then London-based Caparo
Group plc entered the picture.
Caparo has operations in the United Kingdom, North America and
Spain and has been growing rapidly
as a supplier in India since 2002. It is
India’s largest metal stamper.
In the United States, Caparo operates primarily as Bull Moose Tube Co.,
which is based in Chesterfield, Mo.
While Bull Moose serves the commercial-building, mechanical and
sprinkler-pipe industries, it had little automotive business.
For Caparo, Voestalpine Polynorm
was an opportunity to gain a foothold
in the North American automotive industry, said Paul Flanagan, managing
director of P&M Corporate Finance.
“Caparo was very impressed with
the management team and the company’s breadth of manufacturing capabilities and quality systems, and
believed Polynorm would be a strong
platform for growth in North America,” he added.
Voestalpine Polynorm was a steelstamping company with annual sales
of about $60 million. It was owned by
W
Linz, Austria-based Voestalpine AG.
Caparo acquired Voestalpine Polynorm on Nov. 1 for about $15 million,
according to an industry source, and
renamed it Caparo
Vehicle Components
Inc. The result: Caparo’s acquisition
preserved as many
as 200 jobs in
Southeast Michigan.
So far, the integration has gone
well, said Michael
Dustmann
Dustmann, COO
for Caparo in North America. Caparo’s president here is Colin Scott.
“One of the primary reasons we
were interested was we saw this as
an opportunity to grow Caparo in
North America,” Dustmann said.
“And we think, based on the reaction
we’ve received from current customers and potential customers, that
we will be very successful in the long
term.”
Dustmann also said Caparo is
evaluating another acquisition and
is hoping to close the deal soon.
Caparo was founded in 1968 by
British industrialist Lord Paul of
Marylebone, who remains chairman.
The group employs about 6,000 and
has annual sales of about $1.4 billion.
— Brent Snavely
your goals
F
or upstart private-equity
firm BlackEagle Partners
L.L.C., the acquisition of
Rockford Products Corp. in November gives it an opportunity
to improve the performance of
a company that does business
with several major tier-one automotive suppliers.
Rockford, based in Rockford,
Ill., makes highly engineered
chassis and suspension components for automakers and the
automotive
aftermarket.
It was founded in 1929,
and filed for
Chapter 11
bankruptcy
last summer.
BlackEagle, a Bloomfield
HillsKanehann
based
private-equity fund, paid $23
million to buy Rockford and
bring it out of bankruptcy.
Garrett Kanehann, partner
of BlackEagle, said Rockford’s
troubles stemmed from manufacturing processes that were
decades out of date, an ineffective management team and rising pension costs.
On the positive side, Kane-
hann said, Rockford still had
strong customer relationships
with local tier-one suppliers including Federal-Mogul Corp.,
American Axle & Manufacturing
Holdings Inc. and TRW Automotive
Holdings Corp.
Rockford was BlackEagle’s
first acquisition for an investment fund launched in June 30
with about $250 million.
Kanehann said Rockford is
exactly the kind of company
BlackEagle was looking for to
build its reputation as both an
investment fund and a turnaround firm. Already, Kanehann said, Rockford’s performance has improved.
BlackEagle consists of these
three turnaround specialists
who
left
Southfield-based
Questor Management Co. L.L.C. to
form their own firm: Kanehann,
Jason Runco and Michael Madden. Runco and Kanehann are
partners. Madden is managing
partner.
They were joined at BlackEagle by partner Harry Watson,
chairman of Caledonia Group Inc.,
a Detroit-based turnaround firm
specializing in the lean-manufacturing principles made famous by Toyota Motor Corp.
— Brent Snavely
The law firm of Foley & Lardner LLP
congratulates our clients and friends:
Edcor Data Services
Noble International
Seneca Partners
Strength Capital Partners
Wynnchurch Capital
Bud Aspatore, Chairman, Amherst Partners
On being honored by Crain’s/Association for Corporate Growth as part of
their recent M&A Awards.
At Foley, we treat your goals like ours because we’re in this together.
To learn more, please contact Nicole Y. Lamb-Hale in our Detroit office
at [email protected].
Foley.com
Integrity. Insight. Innovation.
T H E
F O L E Y
D I F F E R E N C E
©2008 Foley & Lardner LLP • Attorney Advertising • Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome • Models used are not actual clients but are representative of clients • 321 N. Clark Street, Suite 2800, Chicago, IL 60610 • 312.832.4500 • 08.4501
3/21/2008
9:49 AM
Page 2
March 24, 2008
Page 13
FOCUS: FINANCE
Finalist: Edcor Data Services
ontiac-based Edcor Data Services had its work cut out
for it persuading Benefitsource owner Steven Friend to sell
his business.
“Most of the players in this marketplace today have no desire to sell
— their business
keeps growing,”
said Len Serwa,
vice president of
business development at Edcor.
“It was difficult to find a
company
that
was successful
but also had
Serwa
ownership that
was willing to sell based on a point
in time.”
With assistance from Foley &
Lardner L.L.P. in Detroit, Edcor persuaded Friend to sell his stock in
the company and to stay on as vice
president of business development
P
for the new subsidiary.
The acquisition expands Edcor’s
expertise in administering tuition
reimbursement programs into administration of flexible spending
and health savings accounts and
COBRA benefits for employers.
“We were looking for someone
who had expertise with other products, and an established customer
base, and processes already in
place that were comparable to
ours,” Serwa said.
Benefitsource brought all of those
things, he said, and added 40 employees at its Monroe, Grand Rapids
and Kalamazoo sites, bringing Edcor’s employee ranks to 150.
The subsidiary represents 25
percent to 33 percent of Edcor’s $10
million in revenue, Serwa said.
Steve Corso was CEO at the time
of the acquisition; Phillip Fisher is
the current CEO.
— Sherri Begin
Better Than Being
A Fly On The Wall.
What are your people really thinking?
How do your salaries and benefits stack up
with other companies?
How loyal are your customers?
ASE’s Survey Services can provide you with
insights and answers that will make
your company more competitive.
Benefits & Compensation Surveys | Employee Surveys | Customer Surveys
Best deal, $25 million-$100 million
Winner: Strength Capital Partners L.L.C.
S
trength Capital Partners L.L.C.’s
purchase in July of two
Houston companies for $80.5
million has been named the best
deal of 2007 in the range of $25 million to $100 million.
The deal epitomizes Strength’s
investment model, according to
Steven Hilfinger, partner in the
Detroit office of Foley & Lardner
L.L.P. and a member of its M&A
group — finding well-run companies in niches that aren’t sexy or
eye-catching but have significant
barriers to entry by the competition and which are making money.
Moreover, the companies can
use an infusion of capital to grow
and add management resources.
Strength’s founders and managing partners are Mark McCammon
and Michael Bergeron.
Birmingham-based Strength Capital bought rePipe Construction and
PM Construction and Rehabilitation
from Houston parent, rePipe Inc.
They had combined revenue of
about $57 million last year, and at
the time of the purchase had a total
of 220 employees.
The deal was financed with $19.2
million from Strength Capital’s
second fund of $140 million and
debt arranged by the Chicago of-
fice of BMO Capital Markets Corp.
The deal was complicated by the
need for aggressive timing — it
was 80 days
from signing a
letter of intent
to closing — a
tightening credit market, bonding issues particular to the
sewer business,
and the decision
to fold the comMcCammon
panies into one
of Strength’s portfolio companies,
Detroit-based Inland Management.
That in turn required Inland to be
split into two entities to align businesses by sector: Inland Industrial Services Group L.L.C. and Inland Pipe Rehabilitation L.L.C.
Both Texas companies, which
kept their management and location, and Inland’s sewer repair business were aligned under the Inland
Pipe brand.
In November, Strength Capital
announced that with its second
fund more than 75 percent invested, it was launching its third and
largest fund, of $250 million.
— Tom Henderson
(248) 353-4500 ASEONLINE.ORG
/035)8&45&3/)*()8":
4065)'*&-%.*$)*("/
© 2008 ASE
PARTY PLATTERS
EXECUTIVE BOX LUNCHES
DELIVERED
Y O U R C AT E R I N G S O L U T I O N
Finalist: NSF International Inc.
SF International Inc. faced
tough competition in its bid
for United Kingdom-based
Checkmate International plc, the
only large food safety company for
sale last year.
“It was a very good company
and there were many other companies after it,” said Kristen Holt,
president of NSF International Food
Safety, an NSF subsidiary. Kevan
Lawlor is CEO of the parent firm.
Birmingham-based Seneca Partners “helped us position ourselves as
N
the best company to sell to help
(CMI) grow for
the future,” she
said.
Completed in
August, the $43
million cash acquisition solidified NSF’s posiHolt
tion as a leader
in the food safety industry globalSee NSF, Page 14
JIMMYJOHNS.COM
©2004 JIMMY JOHN’S FRANCHISE, LLC
3/21/2008
9:47 AM
Page 14
Page 1
March 24, 2008
FOCUS: FINANCE
Best deal, $25 million-$100 million
Best deal, more than $100 million
NSF:
Food
safety
Winner: International Automotive Components Group
■ From Page 13
ly, Holt said. It added new
footholds in Europe and
South Africa to testing locations in Ann Arbor, California, Mexico, Chile and Peru.
The deal brought NSF 168
employees in 18 countries
and about $30 million in revenue, bringing it to about
$150 million, Holt said.
“Being a nonprofit really
put us in a unique position
— that was not a type of
business that CMI really understood,” since outside the
U.S., nonprofits are primarily charities, Holt said.
“I think what (CMI) did
really like was our focus on
food safety and promoting
public safety. … They realized they would be an important part of NSF fulfilling its
mission,” she said.
— Sherri Begin
Finalist: Wynnchurch Capital
T
erry Theodore, partner with
Wynnchurch Capital’s Bloomfield Hills office, said he
gained a great deal of respect for
the Detroit 3 last year.
That’s because the automakers
provided both support and an intense level of due diligence as
Wynnchurch
negotiated the
acquisition of
two suppliers.
Chicagobased
Wynnchurch acquired
Metzeler Automotive Profile Systems-North America
and
GDX
Theodore
Automotive last
year and combined them into one
company called Henniges Automotive, based in Farmington Hills.
Wynnchurch acquired Metzeler
in September and announced
plans to acquire GDX Automotive
in October. Both companies make
sealing systems for the automotive
industry.
The deals were complicated because they were negotiated simultaneously and GDX was in financial distress. Wynnchurch had to
acquire both companies to gain
the automakers’ confidence that
the new company would be financially viable, Theodore said.
While Metzeler’s operations
were doing fine, GDX Automotive
was suffering from a number of
unprofitable contracts that Cerberus Capital Management L.P. inherited when it purchased GDX
Automotive in 2004.
Theodore said the automakers
pushed Wynnchurch to develop a
business plan that analyzed the potential profitability of each individual part produced by GDX Automotive.
“It was very important to them
that we have an operating management process and systems in place
to manage the plants because they
knew the turnaround was going to
be very, very difficult,” said
Theodore, who works out of Wynnchurch’s Bloomfield Hills office.
Together, Metzeler’s North
American operations and GDX Automotive had annual sales of $700
million in 2006. The total value of
the two acquisitions was between
$90 million and $100 million.
“The one thing that came out of
this process was how smart and
creative the people from General
Motors, Chrysler and Ford were,”
Theodore said. “As we completed
the transaction, I felt very encouraged about the people who are
managing the North American car
companies.”
— Brent Snavely
nternational Automotive Components Group North America Inc.
was born out of the former automotive interiors division of Lear
Corp. and various interior divisions of Collins & Aikman Corp.
Almost overnight the company
has emerged as one of Southeast
Michigan’s largest automotive
suppliers. The brains and money
behind IAC Group is New York financier Wilbur Ross, who made a
fortune reorganizing the U.S. steel
industry. Ross bought portions of
Collins & Aikman out of Chapter
11 bankruptcy and combined them
with Lear’s former interiors division, which had been bleeding
money for several years.
Ross is chairman and CEO of WL
Ross & Co. L.L.C., a private-equity
firm in New York, where IAC
Group is based. Formed on March
31, 2007, IAC Group has about $5.5
billion in global sales.
Dearborn-based IAC Group
North America is the largest unit
with about $3.3 billion in annual
sales. It is led mostly by a group of
former Lear executives who are
excited to be in charge of a company that specializes in one area: automotive interiors.
Top executives include CEO
James Kamsickas, CFO Jeff
Vanneste and Vice President and
General Counsel Janis Acosta.
IAC Group completed the purchase of Southfield-based Collins
I
& Aikman’s soft trim division in
October. The division employs
about 3,900 and has 16 plants in
North America that make carpet,
molded flooring products and dash
insulators. The division also has a
key technical center in Plymouth
that conducts noise and vibration
tests.
IAC also purchased in October
Collins & Aikman’s plant in
Saltillo, Mexico.
It was widely
considered to be
Collins & Aikman’s
crown
jewel. The Saltillo plant makes
injection-molded
parts including
Ross
instrument panels, doors and interior trim, and employs about 250.
Together, IAC Group said, the
soft trim and Saltillo acquisitions
generate annual sales of more than
$600 million. The company paid
$126 million to buy them.
In January, Ross told an audience at the Automotive News World
Congress that he likes to buy companies as cheaply as possible and
to assume as little debt as possible.
IAC Group, he said, has no debt.
And while it isn’t profitable yet,
IAC’s financial performance was
ahead of budget in 2007, Ross said.
— Brent Snavely
Finalist: Noble International Ltd.
oble International Ltd. has experienced rapid growth
over the past two years because of two strategic acquisitions, and it may elect to buy longterm stability by turning over
control to the world’s largest steel
company.
Last August, Noble (Nasdaq:
NOBL) acquired a European division of ArcelorMittal S.A. for cash
and stock in a deal valued at $300
million. In return, ArcelorMittal
gained a 40 percent stake in Noble
and the ability to appoint four
members to Noble’s board.
In October 2006, Troy-based Noble acquired Troy-based Pullman Industries Inc., a company with annual sales of about $200 million.
The acquisitions quickly vaulted Noble from annual sales of
about $400 million in 2006 — excluding Pullman — to sales that
are expected to exceed $1.2 billion
in 2008.
Noble gained a broader range of
products when it acquired Pullman, which makes tubular steel
products for vehicles.
By acquiring Tailored Blank
Arcelor, Noble gained global production capability. Tailored Blank
Arcelor’s plants are in Belgium,
France, Germany, Spain, Slovakia,
the United Kingdom, the U.S., plus
interests in two joint ventures in
Asia.
The Arcelor transaction was
complicated — not just because it
involved companies on different
continents but also because negotiations were occurring at the same
time that Netherlands-based Mittal
N
Steel Co. NV was acquiring Luxemborg-based Arcelor S.A. The new
company, ArcelorMittal, had combined revenue of $105.2 billion in
revenue in 2007.
But with growth has come growing pains. By September, Noble
was out of compliance on its loan
and line of credit. And in February, three members of Noble’s
board of directors resigned.
ArcelorMittal has offered to provide Noble with
a $50 million
loan and has
also offered to
buy 2.4 million
shares of common stock from
company
founder
and
Chairman Bob
Skandalaris for
Saeli
$14 per share. In
exchange, ArcelorMittal wants the
ability to appoint a majority of Noble board members.
The stock purchase agreement
is contingent on the resignation of
Skandalaris, terms to which Skandalaris has agreed, according to a
document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Arcelor’s increased involvement and increased support is
viewed as a positive development
by the company,” said Noble CEO
Thomas Saeli in an interview with
Crain’s Detroit Business. “It will allow us to develop the Noble business the way that we think that we
can and take advantage of opportunities.”
— Brent Snavely
3/20/2008
3:15 PM
Page 2
March 24, 2008
Page 15
FOCUS: FINANCE
Deal Maker of the Year
Finalist: Valassis Communications Inc.
T
here was a flirtation, a
budding romance, a nasty
spat and then finally a
marriage.
And a fruitful marriage it’s
been thus far. For the second consecutive quarter, Livonia-based
newspaper coupon maker Valassis Communications Inc. reaped the
benefits of its March 2007 acquisition of Advo Inc., a Connecticutbased direct-mail giant, for what
ended up being a $1.2 billion deal.
The result is that Valassis
(NYSE: VCI) ended 2007 as a $2.2
billion company — up 115 percent from $1 billion in revenue at
the end of 2006. Full-year net income was $58 million, a 13 percent improvement.
The deal provided Valassis
critically needed revenue because the coupon business has
been shrinking. The coupons,
distributed as free-standing inserts, are now less than 10 percent of business. They used to account for 95 percent of its profits.
“This was the culmination of
our long-term strategy to diversify our business,” said Alan
Schultz, Valassis chairman, president and CEO. “Our 2007 financial performance reinforces our
belief in the strong strategic ra-
tionale for the acquisition.”
Valassis paid $1.2 billion, or
$33.02 a share,
for Advo and
assumed refinancing
of
$125 million in
debt. Finance
included cash,
an $870 million
senior secured
credit facility
from several
Schultz
lenders
and
$540 million in senior notes due
in 2015.
The combined company has
15,000 advertisers worldwide, including 96 of the top 100 U.S. advertisers, and 7,500 employees
with operations in 22 states and
nine countries.
Valassis sued Advo last summer to get out of what was then a
$1.3 billion deal, claiming that
Advo misrepresented its longterm financial health. Advo
counter-sued to enforce the July
2006 agreement, charging that
the court action amounted to
buyer’s remorse.
The companies settled Dec. 19,
2006, and the acquisition was
completed March 2.
— Bill Shea
Winner: Huron Capital Partners L.L.C.
Finalist: Arthur Dudley, Butzel Long P.C.
“We had a very good year,” said Brian Demkowicz, managing partner of Detroit-based Huron Capital
Partners L.L.C.
Good enough for his firm to be named Crain’s
Dealmaker of the Year for 2007.
Huron made 11 acquisitions and sold three companies for an aggregate deal total of $225 million.
Huron’s portfolio revenue increased from about
$400 million in 2006 to $500 million. It added 400 employees at its companies, including 118 in Michigan, for a total
head count of 3,400.
In addition, it found the time to
raise its third and largest fund,
$350 million, getting oversubscribed in just 30 days. Huron
originally had targeted a fund of
$250 million.
Investors included Dow Chemical Co., the state of Michigan, AllDemkowicz
state Investments, National City Equity Investors and Hartford Life Insurance Co.
“All the recent turmoil — the economic uncertainty, the subprime trouble, $100 oil, the credit
crunch — it didn’t have the impact on us that it had
on others, and we were able to weather on through,”
said Demkowicz.
Huron’s model is to find well-run, middle-market
(revenue of $10 million to $200 million) companies
that need capital or additional management expertise to grow, and to develop niche platform companies it can fold other acquisitions into. For example,
it is building a broad-based transportation group to
provide service on the West Coast and in the South.
It added three transportation companies in 2007.
— Tom Henderson
Arthur Dudley, a veteran of more than 30 years of
corporate legal practice, brought his extensive experience in securities law and mergers and acquisitions to bear in 2007 on the $1.4 billion acquisition of
Covansys Corp. by California-based
Computer Sciences Corp.
He completed the Covansys deal
in July, about two months after
the first U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Dudley had worked with Farmington Hills-based Covansys since
shortly after the company was
formed, representing the company
and its founder, Raj Vattikuti,
Dudley
president and CEO, in many acquisitions. He has become one of Vattikuti’s top advisers, and is relied upon in all major transactions.
For Computer Sciences Corp., the deal added 8,200
employees, including 6,000 in India where CSC’s
workforce was nearly doubled.
Also during 2007, Dudley represented UK-based TI
Automotive Ltd. in selling its industrial group, which
includes Bundy Refrigeration, Walbro Engine Management and Vari-Form, to Sun Capital, and in its refinancing of a $1.2 billion syndicated credit facility.
He also has worked with Southfield-based
TechTeam Global Inc. on more than six deals in the
past five years, including its 2007 $34 million purchase of Altarum Institute’s NewVectors L.L.C.
Dudley serves as director and secretary of the
Michigan Minority Business Council, is president and a
director of the Legal Aid and Defender Association, and
was a director and board chairman of the Black United Fund of Michigan.
— Robert Ankeny
S
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3:14 PM
Page 16
Page 1
March 24, 2008
FOCUS: FINANCE
Deal Maker of the Year
Finalist: Seneca Partners Inc.
irmingham-based Seneca Partners Inc. was a
finalist for a body of work
that included serving as
an investment banker on nine acquisitions or divestitures, adding
four companies to its portfolio of
private-equity investments and
adding two companies to the
portfolio of its health care venture-capital fund, Seneca Health
Partners.
“We had a great year,” said
Kothari
Managing
Partner
Rajesh
Kothari.
Seneca served as an adviser on the buy side for
B
deals that ranked No. 74 and No. 78 on Crain’s list of
biggest deals for 2007.
In November, Knox Lawrence International L.L.C. of
New York and Falcon Investment Advisors L.L.C. of New
York and Boston bought Mid-West Conveyor Co. of Dearborn, which makes and installs conveyor systems and
has revenue of about $200 million, for about $50 million from London-based Tomkins plc. “That was the
most complicated deal we’ve ever done,” said Kothari.
In August, Ann Arbor-based NSF International
bought Checkmate International plc of London for
$44.5 million. (See story, Page 13.) The Checkmate
deal was complicated because it was an overseas
public company and a public bidding process.
— Tom Henderson
aeromexico.com
Walsh College grad students
win close M&A competition
Graduate business students at
Walsh College walked away — by a
fraction of a percent — with
$10,000 in scholarship money in
the first ACG Detroit Cup, a competition sponsored by the Association
for Corporate Growth.
On Feb. 16, five teams of graduate students from Walsh, University
of Michigan, Michigan State University, Oakland University and Wayne
State University were given a case
1 800 237 6639 (aeromex)
Introducing service to Mexico
with emphasis on the word “service.”
study on mergers and acquisitions
provided by ACG members. Students developed solutions and presented their findings to a panel of
judges, who were ACG members
and represented finance, accounting and legal aspects of M&A
transactions.
In the end, Walsh bested UM by
seven-tenths of a percent. Team
members were Dave Chilingirian,
Tara Miceli and Mike Rumel. They
were coached by Professor Matt
Wirgau.
Detroit was the third U.S. city to
host the competition, following
Los Angeles and Philadelphia. A
fourth is planned in Cincinnati.
“The amount of dedication and
incentive during the semifinals
was impressive,” Todd Hohauser,
ACG Detroit Cup chairman, said
in a press release. “Students took
anywhere from 40 to 80 hours outside of their class work to prepare
the case presentations.”
In the case study, students represented a client as investment
bankers. They used income and
balance statements and other relevant information to prepare and
deliver a 30-minute presentation.
Team members were:
University of Michigan: Darshan
Bhate, Nissan Dar, Ohad Dessau,
Jing Liang, Nidhi Nidhi, Dayna
Santoro. The team received $5,000
in scholarships.
Wayne State University: Steven
Migliore, Santosh Nayak, Roger
Pawlowski. The team received
$2,000 in scholarships.
Oakland University: Sathya Dev,
Satya Vallurupalli, Rama Vallurupalli, Vinayakumar Kasimsetty.
The team received $1,000 in scholarships.
Michigan State University: Steve
Stolarick, Ruppy Singh, Todd
Hagopian, Lowell Thomas, Kuke
Bostic. The team received $1,000 in
scholarships.
Mexico’s largest airline is pleased to announce its new Detroit–Monterrey–Mexico City service,
beginning April 7.
• Conduct business in Monterrey and Mexico City with punctual morning flights
• Connect to major gulf and northern cities throughout Mexico
• Fly with the only airline in Mexico that travels to Central America, South America, Europe and Asia
• Enjoy unsurpassed Mexican hospitality with AeroMexico, where all beverages and delicious meals
are complimentary for business and coach passengers
Flight Schedule
Monday, Wednesday and Friday
Detroit - Monterrey
Departure
Arrival
Detroit
8:30 a.m.
Monterrey
11:15 a.m.
From Monterrey*, you can connect to: Chihuahua, Hermosillo and Leon
Monterrey - Mexico City
Departure
Arrival
Monterrey
12:30 p.m.
Mexico City
2:00 p.m.
From Mexico City*, you can connect to: Cancun, Merida and Oaxaca
For more information, call us at 1 800 237 6639,
visit aeromexico.com or contact your travel agent.
*Some flights operated by AeroMexico Connect.
DDA approves $2M loan
for Book Cadillac project
The Detroit Downtown Development Authority approved a shortterm $2 million loan Tuesday for
the Westin Book Cadillac renovation project to offset half of an estimated $4 million funding shortfall.
The cost overrun of about $10
million on the $180 million renovation and upgrade is to be met with
a combination of the loan, developer investment, a $3.5 million contractor contingency and $2.5 million owner contingency.
The loan, to J. Christopher Enterprises Inc., is at 5 percent. The entire amount including interest is
due Jan. 31, 2009. Security includes
the personal guarantee of Cleveland developer John Ferchill and
first position in excess sales proceeds from condominium sales.
The Book Cadillac, which closed
in 1984, is scheduled to reopen Oct.
31 with 454 hotel suites and 67 condominiums on the top floors.
— Robert Ankeny
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Greater efficiency means more peace of mind.
Envision your funds working overtime, all the time. At Bank of America, you have a local client
manager and team of specialists delivering innovative electronic payments and deposit solutions,
as well as comprehensive credit and investment capabilities. Keep your capital working, even when
you’re not, with the No. 1 cash management provider1 and No. 1 middle-market bank2 nationwide.
Opportunity is everywhere. Seize it with Bank of America.
1
2
Treasury & Risk magazine, September 2007
Proprietary research based on number of clients.
Bank of America, N.A. and LaSalle Bank, N.A. members FDIC. Equal Housing Lenders
©2008 Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved.
. Certain activities and services referred to above may be provided by Banc of America Securities LLC and/or other affiliates of Bank of America Corporation.
Page 18
3/20/2008
3:13 PM
Page 1
March 24, 2008
PEOPLE
EDUCATION
William Johnson to vice president for
finance and administration, Marygrove College, Detroit, from director
of strategic development, DTE Energy, Detroit.
ENGINEERING
Robert Lavoie to president, Nowak &
Fraus Engineers, Pontiac, from executive vice president.
FINANCE
Jerry Farstvedt to
senior loan officer, Oxford Bank,
Oxford, from senior vice president.
Kenneth
Fuhrmann to director and treasurer, Alix Partners, Southfield,
from vice presiFarstvedt
dent and treasurer, UGS Corp., Plano, Texas.
Julie Kreinbring to controller, Co-op
Services Credit Union, Livonia, from
CEO, Huron River Area Credit Union,
Ann Arbor.
J.J. Reifler to shareholder, Korotkin Insurance Group, Southfield, continuing
as vice president.
Brian Walsh to assistant field vice
president, North
Central
Region,
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Ken Taylor has
been
appointed
general
manager and
president of
GM Planworks
in Detroit,
effective April
1. He had been
executive vice
president and
Taylor
group leader at
sibling agency Starcom USA in
Chicago.
Taylor, 42, replaces Dennis Donlin,
who said he wants to spend more
time with his family.
This is Taylor’s second time with
the agency; he previously served
as senior vice president and
managing director.
Taylor earned a degree in
communications from Bradley
University in Peoria, Ill.
GM Planworks handles buying and
planning for General Motors Corp.’s
$3 billion annual media budget.
Douglas Salzenstein to partner, Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn L.L.P.,
Detroit, from associate.
Peter Kellett to director, litigation
department, Dyke-
Allstate Insurance
Co., Farmington
Hills, from field administrative controller. Also, Luci
Little to regional
distribution
leader, North Central Region, from
Walsh
field administrative director.
Doug Browne to
vice president and
senior mortgage
banker,
Capital
Mortgage Funding,
Southfield, from
vice president and
mortgage broker,
Mortgage
Planners Inc., Southfield.
Little
Byna Elliott to senior vice president
and director of community development, Fifth Third Bank, Southfield,
from vice president. Also, Jarrett
Paynter to senior vice president and
CFO, from vice president; and Jack Riley to senior vice president and director of marketing, from vice president.
HEALTH CARE
John Tu to vice president and chief
medical informatics officer, William
Beaumont Hospitals, Royal Oak, from
director of electronic health record
systems, information technologies,
and assistant professor, division of
general internal medicine, Loyola
University Health System, Chicago.
INDUSTRY GROUPS
Greg Fronizer to director of finance
and administration, Ann Arbor Spark,
Ann Arbor, from COO and CFO, Easter Seals-Michigan Inc., Waterford
Township.
INFO/TECHNOLOGY
Eryn Grech to marketing and communications manger, NuSoft Solutions,
Troy, from marketing coordinator,
MotorCity Casino Hotel, Detroit.
LAW
Sean Cook, Geoffrey Gallinger, Amy
Glenn and Susan Johnson to shareholder, Butzel Long P.C., Detroit, from
senior attorney. Also, Kathleen Raven
Gurrola, Paula Hall, Thomas Kabel,
Thomas Noonan, Deborah Swedlow
and E. Dale Wilson to shareholder,
from associate.
Douglas Wagner re-elected managing
partner, Warner Norcross & Judd
L.L.P., Southfield.
ma
P.L.L.C.,
Gossett
Detroit,
remaining as member. Also, Derek
Whitefield to practice group leader,
automotive
and
Salzenstein
products liability
practice area, remaining as member;
Jill Wheaton to practice group leader,
pharmaceutical and medical device
practice area, continuing as head of
the firm’s appellate group; Mark
Hauck to practice group leader, business and commercial practice area, remaining as member; and Harry Arger
to practice group leader, general litigation practice area, remaining as
member.
Larry Justice to member, Kerr, Russell and Weber P.L.C., Detroit, from associate.
Daniel Gwinn to partner, Bator Berlin
& Gwinn, Birmingham, from senior associate.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Victor Mack to director of retail
sales in Michigan, Verizon Wireless, Southfield,
from director of
business
sales,
Great Plains Region, Minneapolis.
John Dwyer to director of regional
Mack
sales, TDS Metrocom, Livonia, from regional sales manager.
PEOPLE GUIDELINES
Announcements are limited to
management positions. Nonprofit
and industry group board
appointments can be found at
www.crainsdetroit.com. Send
submissions for People to Joanne
Scharich, Crain’s Detroit Business,
1155 Gratiot Ave., Detroit, MI
48207-2997, or send e-mail to
[email protected]. Releases
must contain the person’s name,
new title, company, city in which
the person will work, former title,
former company (if not promoted
from within) and former city in
which the person worked. Photos
are welcome, but we cannot
guarantee they will be used.
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than a strong opinion.
We deliver insightful advice with unmatched capital strength.
There are defining moments in the life of every business and every deal when it all depends on your
next move. That’s why companies turn to us. Your local client manager has the market-leading
intellectual and financial capital of Bank of America to help you win, including highly experienced
M&A advisors. Whatever your goal, we offer an insightful perspective with the strength of
America’s No. 1 middle-market bank.1
1
3/20/2008
3:12 PM
Page 1
Page 20
March 24, 2008
CRAIN'S LIST: LARGEST RESIDENTIAL BROKERS Ranked by 2007 gross sales
Rank
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
Gross sales
($000,000)
2007
Gross sales
($000,000)
2006
No. of residential
transactions
closed in 2007
No. of offices/
No. licensed
brokers and registered
sales representatives
Average sales
per office
($000,000)
Average
home
price
Richard Elsea, chairman
$2,434.9
$2,815.7
13,891
34
1,511
$71.6
$175,289
Century 21 Town & Country
John Kersten, president
1,090.0
1,318.6 B
5,936
14
650
77.9
183,624
Coldwell Banker Schweitzer Real Estate Inc.
Paul Schweitzer, president
722.6
885.7
3,661
11
390
65.7
197,367
Edward Surovell Realtors
Edward Surovell, president
453.5
504.7
2,231
10
189
45.3
203,252
Charles Reinhart Co.
David Lutton, broker, owner and
president
439.9
503.0
1,621
8
161
55.0
271,368
Century 21 Today Inc.
Douglas Hardy, president
318.3
410.1
1,348
6
283
53.0
236,109
Re/Max Classic
Carol Boji, broker and owner
288.3
334.9
2,309
6
89
48.1
124,876
Hall and Hunter Realtors
Dennis Wolf, owner and president
263.6
240.5
741
1
72
263.6
355,680
Weir Manuel Realtors
Kelly Sweeney, president and CEO
263.3
308.9
1,001
4
102
65.8
263,016
SKBK Sotheby's International Realty
Robert Gleason, president
256.0
231.0
445
1
88
256.0
575,281
Coldwell Banker Preferred Realtors
Jim Stevens, president
203.0
241.0
1,007
2
124
101.5
201,589
Century 21 Curran & Christie Inc.
Robert Curran, president
194.7
275.5
1,483
3
115
64.9
131,304
Re/Max Team 2000
Ed Mallad, president
191.6
169.7
1,704
1
36
191.6
112,418
Re/Max In The Hills
Joan Downing, managing partner and
Jim Leahy, partner
188.2
174.5
1,262
1
61
188.2
149,102
Re/Max 100
Crystal Halley, broker and owner
155.9
248.6
700
1
45
155.9
222,716
The Michigan Group Inc.
Joseph DeKroub, CEO
149.0
264.8
773
3
148
49.7
192,720
Re/Max First
Carol Vitale, president
148.2
201.7
914
2
59
74.1
162,115
Keller Williams Realty Northville
Peter Costa, broker and operating
principal
141.5
220.1
766
1
129
141.5
184,757
Re/Max Advantage 1 Inc.
Richard Kolb, Roberta Rasmussen and
Thomas Figlan, brokers and owners
127.5
149.7
1,001
1
72
127.5
127,356
Re/Max Experts
Richard Woolsey, broker and owner
126.3
113.6
1,055
3
60
42.1
119,793
Re/Max Acclaim
Robert Shaffer, owner and broker
120.6
117.2
1,292
1
43
120.6
93,363
GMAC Real Estate-The Kee Group
John Meesseman, president
117.5
153.7
1,047
5
147
23.5
112,267
Re/Max Suburban
David Tuscany and David Kwasny,
owners
117.2
163.1
850
1
47
117.2
137,839
Re/Max New Trend
Yoshiko Fujimori, broker and owner
99.6
71.0
680
2
38
49.8
146,446
Re/Max Prestige
Renda Ashour, owner
97.5
117.0
1,323
2
16
48.8
73,696
Company
Address
Phone; Web site
Top executive
Real Estate One Inc.
25800 Northwestern Highway, Suite 100, Southfield 48075
(248) 208-2900; www.realestateone.com
800 W. University Drive, Rochester 48307
(248) 608-5000; www.century21town-country.com
3555 E. 14 Mile Road, Sterling Heights 48310
(586) 268-1000; www.cbschweitzer.com
1884 W. Stadium Blvd., Ann Arbor 48103
(734) 665-9800; www.surovell.com
2200 Green Road, Suite E, Ann Arbor 48105
(734) 747-7888; www.reinhartrealtors.com
28544 Orchard Lake Road, Farmington Hills 48334
(313) 538-2000; www.century21today.com
29630 Orchard Lake Road, Farmington Hills 48334
(248) 737-6800; www.detroitmetrorealestate.com
442 S. Old Woodward, Birmingham 48009
(248) 644-3500; hallandhunter.com
298 S. Old Woodward Ave., Birmingham 48009
(248) 644-6300; www.weirmanuel.com
348 E. Maple Road, Birmingham 48009
(248) 644-7000; skbk.com
44644 Ann Arbor Road, Suite A, Plymouth 48170
(734) 459-6000; www.cbpreferred.com
24711 Michigan Ave., Dearborn 48124
(313) 274-1700; century21cc.com
23676 Park St., Dearborn 48124
(313) 561-0900
36700 Woodward Ave., Bloomfield Hills 48304
(248) 646-5000; www.maxhomesearch.com
26870 Beck Road, Novi 48374
(248) 348-3000; www.remax100novi.com
6870 Grand River Ave., Brighton 48114
(810) 227-4600; www.michigangroup.com
36594 Moravian Drive, Clinton Township 48035
(586) 792-8000; www.realestatebyfirst.com
22260 Haggerty Road, Northville 48167
(248) 380-8800; www.kwnorthville.com
47800 Gratiot Ave., Chesterfield 48051
(586) 598-0700; www.happyowners.com
13080 Eureka Road, Southgate 48195
(734) 285-3000
31581 Gratiot Ave. Suite 100, Roseville 48066
(586) 285-5555; www.macomb4home.com
15501 Metropolitan Parkway, Clinton Township 48036
(586) 286-4600; www.thekeegroup.net
43599 Schoenherr Road, #100, Sterling Heights 48313
(586) 262-2000
38275 12 Mile Road, #101, Farmington Hills 48331
(248) 553-5050; www.remax-newtrend.com
25050 Ford Road, Dearborn Heights 48127
(313) 277-7777
This list of leading residential brokers is an approximate compilation of the leading brokers in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw and Livingston counties. It is not a complete listing but the most comprehensive available. Unless otherwise noted, information was
provided by the companies. NA = not available. NR = not relevant.
B Figures from 2007 Real Trends 500 listing.
LIST RESEARCHED BY ANNE MARKS AND JOANNE SCHARICH
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1
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Page 22
March 24, 2008
BUSINESS DIARY
ACQUISITIONS
Automotive Franchise Systems L.L.C.,
Warren, has sold its AutoQual and Drive N Style automotive service franchises to Driven Brands Inc. of Charlotte, N.C.
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May 6, 2008 · Novi, Michigan
Network with more than 1,000 people from industries
ranging from automotive manufacturers and suppliers to
health services, education, food processing and others.
Hear from key industry players talk about the latest
advances & initiatives on energy efficiency and
alternative energy.
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United Solar Ovonic L.L.C., Rochester
Hills, has entered into a multiyear
agreement to supply its Uni-Solar solar laminates to Itochu Corp. of Tokyo
for use on rooftops of industrial and
commercial buildings worldwide.
CONTRACTS
EXPANSIONS
PWB Marketing Communications,
Ann Arbor, has added new clients Anderson-Cook of Clinton Township and
B&P Processing of Saginaw.
DesignHub Inc., Saline, designed and
Franklin Title Agency L.L.C., Rochester
produced the 2008 wholesale gift tile catalog for Motawi Tileworks, Ann Arbor.
Encore Energy Systems, Brighton, has
entered into a formal agreement with
Texas-based Energy America Geothermal to collaborate on commercial geothermal installations.
Medical Network One, Rochester, has
become a member of the Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative.
Health Alliance Plan, Detroit, has an
agreement with Farmington Hillsbased Delta Dental Plan of Michigan
to provide dental coverage for members of HAP’s Medicare Advantage insurance products.
Professional Waste Solutions Inc.,
Walled Lake, signed a multiyear service agreement with New York-based
Blackstone Property Management to be
its exclusive provider of recycling services at the Southfield Town Center.
Fisher Consulting Services Inc., a medical-imaging equipment service manager and consultant in Clarkston, announced The Detroit Medical Center
and Sanford Health of Sioux Falls, S.D.,
have signed three- and one-year contract extensions respectively.
1-800-Got-Junk’s Southeast Michigan
partners have hired Bannister and Co.
Inc., Birmingham, to develop a commercial division for their business. 1800-Got-Junk is a junk-removal service with 317 franchises throughout
the U.S., Canada and Australia.
Acument Global Technologies Inc.,
Troy, has selected Group [eX] Buffington & Associates Inc., a marketing
and communications agency in Royal
Oak, to provide internal communications support for its U.S. operations.
IAHI, the Atlanta-based owners association for InterContinental Hotels, has retained the services of Bingham Farmsbased Identity Marketing & Public
Relations to provide marketing and
public relations support and counsel.
Also, K Partners Hospitality Group of
San Antonio, Texas, has retained Identity to provide marketing and public-relations support and counsel.
Lawrence Technological University,
Southfield, and North Central Michigan
College, Petoskey, have signed a university partnership agreement that
will enable students to earn a bachelor’s degree in information technology
entirely on the North Central campus.
Interior Partnership Group Inc., Clawson, announced three design-build construction projects in Ann Arbor,
Auburn Hills and Dearborn. The
Auburn Hills project is for the interior
design and renovation of a 10,000square-foot office with a mezzanine addition for Gongos Research. The Ann
Arbor project is for a 12,000-square-foot
office renovation for the Scio Township
technical operations facility of Comcast. The Dearborn project is for a
40,000-square-foot renovation of the
headquarters of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.
Logicorps, Clinton Township, has
been named technical programming
contractor for the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau’s Web site,
www.visitdetroit.com.
Triton Stormwater Solutions, a
Brighton manufacturer of eco-friendly storm water chambers, entered
sales and distribution agreements
with Environment 21 of Buffalo, N.Y.,
and Highland Township-based CSIGeoturf.
Gage Products Co., Ferndale, provided
alternative fuels to the Society of Automotive Engineers Clean Snowmobile
Challenge March 10-15 at Michigan
Technological University in Houghton.
Hills, has opened a branch office in
the Veranda Shops at Center and Main
streets in Northville. Web site:
www.franklintitleagency.com.
Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwich Shops
has opened at 18357 Hall Road, Macomb
Township. Jason, Robert and Elaine
Turner of Turner Services Group Inc.
own and operate the sub shop, part of a
Champaign, Ill.-based company. Web
site: www.jimmyjohns.com.
Priority Health, Farmington Hills, has
expanded its HMO product coverage
area to include Clare, Midland and
Gratiot counties and part of Monroe
County.
AFC-Holcroft, a Wixom builder of industrial heat-treating equipment, has
opened a branch office in Boncourt,
Switzerland.
MOVES
Beltman Integrated Logistics from
Walled Lake to the Novi Research
Park, 27275 Haggerty Road, Novi. Telephone: (877) 564-4797.
www.beltmannil.com.
Web
site:
LifeSecure Insurance Co. to 10559 Citation Drive, Suite 300, Brighton. Web
site: www.yourlifesecure.com.
Professional Life Underwriters Services L.L.C., a life insurance general
agent, from Southfield to 2155 Butterfield, Troy. Telephone: (248) 256-7587.
Web site: www.plusonweb.com.
Rapid Global Business Solutions Inc.,
from Troy to 31791 Sherman Ave.,
Madison Heights. Web site: www.
rgbsi.com.
NAME CHANGES
Grosse Pointe Alarm to F.E. Moran Inc.
Alarm and Monitoring Services. The
company also has moved from Grosse
Pointe Park to 33341 Kelly Road, Fraser. Web site: www.femoranalarm.
com.
HealthAir Inc., Farmington Hills, to
The HealthAir Group Inc. It has established three divisions: HealthAir, industrial
hygiene
services;
CleanWater, storm water management, industrial waste water consulting and drinking water testing services; SafeEarth, hazardous waste and
recycling
services.
Web
site:
www.health-air.com.
NEW SERVICES
Detroit Renaissance, Detroit, has
launched a podcast series titled “50
CEOs on the D: Detroit Renaissance
Reports,” featuring weekly interviews
with southeast Michigan CEOs. The
podcasts can be streamed live off
www.detroitrenaissance.com, downloaded, or subscribed to via RSS feed
or iTunes.
Workforce Logic and ASG Renaissance, Dearborn and Farmington
Hills, are launching Workforce Renaissance, a minority-business enterprise combining payroll, vendor management and human resources
consulting services with minority recruiting, retention and supplier diversity services.
DIARY GUIDELINES
Send news releases for Business
Diary to Joanne Scharich, Crain’s
Detroit Business, 1155 Gratiot
Ave., Detroit, MI 48207-2997 or
send e-mail to jscharich@crain.
com. Use any Business Diary item
as a model for your release, and
look for the appropriate category.
Without complete information, your
item will not run. Photos are
welcome, but we cannot guarantee
they will be used.
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March 24, 2008
CALENDAR
TUESDAY
at the door.) New members attend
free. Contact: (877) 633-3500.
MARCH 25
Trade Tuesdays: Basics of Importing.
12:10-3:30 p.m. World Trade Center Detroit Windsor. Features presenters
from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Sandler & Travis Trade Advisory Services. World Trade Center Detroit Windsor offices, Allen Park. $25
members and full-time students, $45
others. Contact: (313) 388-2345, ext. 222.
WEDNESDAY
MARCH 26
Hammering Out a Marketing Strategy.
8:30-10:30 a.m. Automation Alley Marketing Mechanics Series. Automation
Alley, Troy. $20 members, $40 others.
Contact: (800) 427-5100.
Angels and Venture Capitalists Working Together to Move Michigan Forward. 5:30 p.m. The American Marketing Association, Detroit chapter.
Terry Cross of
Windward Associates and Dick
Beedon
of
MacBeedon Partners.
Iroquois
Club, Bloomfield
Hills. $35 members, $15 students,
$45 guests. Contact: (248) 6228247.
Cross
COMING EVENTS
Michigan Facilities Expo. 8 a.m.-3 p.m.
April 1-2. Engineering Society of Detroit and other building and engineering associations. Rock Financial
Showplace, Novi. Free. Contact: Sara
Vargason, (952) 808-3385.
Business: Remixed. 7:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
April 2. Birmingham Bloomfield
Chamber. Steve Kopitz, president,
Summit Sports Inc.; Paul Saginaw, cofounder, Zingerman’s; and Joanne
Shaw, president and CEO, Coffee
Beanery. Includes breakout sessions
on marketing, financing, social media
and human resources. Birmingham
Conference Center, Beverly Hills. $55
members, $75 others. Contact: (248)
644-1700.
Where Will America Find the Next
Generation of Innovators. 5-9 p.m.
April 2. Southeast Michigan IEEE.
Gary Beach, publisher emeritus of
CIO Magazine. Fairlane Town Center,
Dearborn. $35. Kevin Taylor, (586) 5730713.
How Michigan’s Economy Affects You.
11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. April 3. Detroit
Economic Club.
Dana
Johnson,
chief economist,
Comerica Bank;
Susan Tompor,
personal finance
columnist, Detroit
Free Press; and
Ron
Humenny,
president,
Starfire Investment
Advisers
Inc. MGM Grand
Johnson
Detroit. $40 members, $50 guests of members, $75 others. Contact: (313) 963-8547.
Tour and New Member Reception at
the Design Center for the new Henry
Ford West Bloomfield Hospital. 7:30-9
a.m. April 4. Inforum. Gerald van
Grinsven, president and CEO of the
new Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital; and Christine Zambricki, COO
and chief nursing officer for the facility. Henry Ford Health Design Center,
Commerce Township. $20 members,
$25 others. (Add $10 after April 1 and
Marketing Core Competencies for
21st Century Business Owners. 8-11:30
a.m. April 10. NAWBO-Excel, a subsidiary of National Association of
Women Business Owners Greater Detroit. Part of the NAWBO U Integrated
Marketing Communications Series.
Miriam Muley, The 85 Percent Niche
L.L.C. $50 individual workshop, $120
series of three. Troy Community Center. Contact: (313) 961-4748.
Adcraft Club of Detroit. Noon April 10.
Adcraft Club of Detroit and 313 Digital. Joanne Bradford, vice president,
chief media officer, MSN. San Marino
Club, Troy. $32 members, $27 junior
members (under age 25), $15 students
(with student ID), $37 others. Contact:
(313) 872-7850.
Government Forecast. 11:45 a.m.-1:30
p.m. April 10. The Birmingham
Bloomfield Chamber. Jack Lessenberry, senior political analyst, WUOMFM, and faculty member, Wayne State
University; and Steve Mitchell, chairman, Mitchell Research & Communications. Townsend Hotel, Birmingham. $50 members, $60 others.
Contact: (248) 644-1700.
Highlighting Southeast Michigan
Community College Consortium and
their Nine Centers of Expertise in Advanced Manufacturing and Alternative
Energy. 7:30-10 a.m. April 10. Detroit
Regional Manufacturing Skills Alliance, Detroit Regional Chamber,
Southeastern Michigan Community
College Consortium, and Greater Detroit Chapter of the American Society
for Training and Development.
Schoolcraft College, Livonia. Contact:
(313) 596-0478.
Health Care Leaders Forum. Federal
Reserve Bank of Chicago-Detroit
branch and the Detroit Regional
Chamber. 6-8 p.m. April 14 and 7:30
a.m.-3:30 p.m. April 15. Ron Gettelfinger, president of the UAW; and professor Elizabeth Teisberg of the Darden
School of Business, University of Virginia, and co-author of Redefining
Health Care. Federal Reserve Bank of
Chicago, Detroit Branch. $199. Contact: (313) 964-6170.
Asian Pacific American Chamber of
Commerce SAE East-West Business
Connection. 5-9 p.m. April 15. Featuring
welcome remarks from Bo Andersson,
General Motors Group vice president
followed by two business-to-business
sessions with SAE Asian delegations
from China, Hong Kong, India, Taiwan,
Korea, Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam.
MGM Grand Detroit Casino. $50 members, $65 others. After April 8, $60 members, $75 others. Contact: M.J. Burns,
(248) 844-4100.
Annual Economic Luncheon. 11:30
a.m.-1:30 p.m. April 17. Oakland County Planning and Economic Development Services, and the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations at the
University of Michigan. George Fulton and Donald Grimes, economists
with the University of Michigan Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations,
will present the 2008-2010 employment
forecast for Oakland County. Rock Financial Showplace, Novi. $40. Contact:
(248) 858-0706.
CALENDAR GUIDELINES
More Calendar items can be found
on the Web at www.crainsdetroit.
com. Please send news releases
for Calendar to Joanne Scharich,
Crain’s Detroit Business, 1155
Gratiot Ave., Detroit, MI 482072997, or e-mail jscharich@
crain.com. You also may submit
Calendar items in the Calendar
section of crainsdetroit.com.
Page 25
Page 26
March 24, 2008
CRAIN’S CLASSIFIED
Call Us For
Personalized Service:
(313) 446-6068
Confidential Reply Boxes Available
See Crainsdetroit.com/Classifieds
for more classified advertisements
See our Classified ads on www.crainsdetroit.com
FAX: (313) 446-1757
E-MAIL: [email protected]
INTERNET: www.crainsdetroit.com/classifieds
Complete Videoconference Services
Job Interviews, Legal Depositions, Business Meetings
Convenient Troy Location, 3 Rooms, 1-200 Capacity
Midwest Video 248-583-3632 www.midwestvideo.com
BUSINESS &
INVESTMENTS
Construction Administrator
CONSULTANTS
Expansion/ Turnaround Consultant
Free Evaluation, expert debt negotiator, staff
evaluation/training. Solutions Management Inc.
586-770-8455 or [email protected]
BUSINESSES FOR SALE
BUSINESS FOR SALE-Check Cashing Store established 20+ yrs in S.W. Detroit. Western Union, Utility
Bill Payment Center. Revenue $150K
Call Michael 313.682.7638
1144 ACRES 4 SEASON RESORT & HUNTING
RANCH. Near Gladwin, MI. Riverfront location
w/restaurant, motel, banquet, trophy whitetail hunting.
Turnkey sale. Call Pat @ MI Outdoor 616-862-4838.
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
EVENT TICKETS
GOLF COURSES
Buyers and Sellers
248-766-9804
FINANCIAL SERVICES
CAPITAL AVAILABLE
If you have an opportunity that requires
funding but does not fit traditional banking parameters - contact us. We do not
fund
normal
start-ups
or
senior/mezzanine debt. Investment size
ranges from $500k to $20 million. Total
committed capital of $100 million. We
have an in-house legal team, can think
"outside of the box" and act quickly.
Please refer to Etccapital.com or contact
ETC Capital, LLC, 46570 Humboldt
Drive, Novi, MI 48377.
MISCELLANEOUS
3 MONTH LOANS ON WORTHWHILE JEWELRY
Jason Silver
Lew Silver Diamond Brokers
9 Mile at Greenfield
248-559-5323
TRAVEL SERVICES
TURN YOUR FREQUENT FLYER MILES INTO CASH
Buying All Airline Miles/Awards/Vouchers.
American Express and all credit card points,
Starwood and hotel points. - Local 800-266-7290
EQUIPMENT &
MERCHANDISE
MISCELLANEOUS
COMPLETE KITCHENS AVAILABLE
VIKING APPLIANCES
MUST SELL
(248) 568 3077
DOWNTOWN RICHMOND - Six unit
all 1 bedroom plus 1,100 sq. ft.
ideal for office or storefront. $249,900.
Call Tom 586-295-9060.
APPRAISERS
Real Estate Appraisal Service
• Market Value
• Commercial, Industrial, Office & Retail
• Certified General Appraiser
• 25 years experience
248-865-3800
Real Estate Advisors - Call us
Planning to
Buy
•
Sell
•
Lease
f multiple Commercial
We’re linked to
Networks and we create results for you
“Incredible deals are being Negotiated”
Call us Now!
from 200 to 2,500 sq. ft.
Shared Reception
Conference Room
Kitchen
Broadband Internet
AUCTIONS
Public Auction
Historic 1891 Six Story Building - 1500 Woodward Ave. Detroit
Auction on-site Saturday April 5th at 11am
Preview & Registration at 9am
Preview & Registration at Noon
Zoned B-4
DOWNTOWN FERNDALE MULTI-USE BUILDING
For sale or lease. 4,950 sq. ft. Office/Warehouse,
Retail or Restaurant. Loading dock, private parking.
Call 248-388-3333
Custom Office Suites
LUCENT . . . AVAYA. . . PARTNER. . .
MAGIX. . . VOIP. . .LEGEND . . .
MERLIN. . .SPIRIT Systems/Parts New/refurbished.
Omnicall Equipment Corp. (248) 848-9282
WE HAVE USED PHONES
Nortel, Lucent, phone systems. Almost any new or
used phone available. Expert installation available.
Call (248)548-6404
Historic 1886 Mansion - 2931 E Jefferson Ave.
Auction on-site Saturday April 5th at 2pm
COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES
MUST SELL, OFFICE CLOSED
Desks $99, Chairs $39, Files $49, Partitions $50,
Lateral Files $99, Cubicles, Office Phone Systems
Call (248) 548-6404 or (248) 474-3375.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Public Auction
Best for Business and
Commercial Use!
OFFICE FURNITURE
CRAIN’S REAL ESTATE
Historic Wright Kay Building
HISTORIC
Apartment
commercial
L/C Terms.
Call:
PRIME TICKET SERVICE Tigers all locations.
All Events Buy / Sell
www.primeseat.com 248-865-6000
AUCTIONS
APARTMENT BUILDINGS
An opportunity to own the Historic Jefferson
Mansion located in the general business
Beth Rose
district. Two completely renovated buildings
Auctioneer, CAI
& parking lot for private parking available in
this public auction. Over 18,000 Sq. Ft. Class
A office space with original flooring, stained
Lora Koralewski
glass & historical design. This is a must see
Auction Coordinator property. Included is a 4500 Sq. Ft. Carriage
Two story building with a reception
Rose Auction Group, LLC house.
area, training area & office space. Also
bethroseauction.com
included is a private parking lot. $1.5 million
in restorations in 2000 to both buildings.
877-696-7653
COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES
C o m m e r c i a l - Fo r S a l e
NOW LEASING
34935 Schoolcraft, Livonia
Erwin Tonch, CCIM
TONCH Properties
www.tonch.com (734) 522-1200
INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY
Leasing 4 Units - 12,000, 24,000, 50,000 & 106,000
s.f. @ Burt Indust’l Pk. (I-96/Telegraph), Very Clean,
Dry, Well-Maint., Docks, Truck Pkg, EZ Freeway
Access. (248) 356 - 5466
1979 Huron Parkway, AA
6,800 square feet
2.94 acres
SALE: $2,150,000
SALE: $2,150,000
2203 Platt, AA
21,000 square feet
3.6 acres
815 Woodland, Saline
36,000 square feet
Highly specialized Mfg. Facility
SALE: $4,095,000
SALE: $1,850,00
2271 S. State St, AA
41303 Concept, Plymouth
2.24 Acres Redevelopment
200’ Frontage - State St
SALE: $1,700,000
AVAILABLE NOW
4,000 to 100,000 sq. ft.
Also 10,000 & 25,000 sq. ft.
Free Standing Bldgs w/truckwells.
1 Mile from Metro Airport
110 Parkland Plaza, AA
20,975 square feet
2.65 acres
Corp.Office/Warehouse
16,934 square feet
SALE: $1,150,000
Susan Moore
Jim Chaconas
(734) 995-1937
(734) 995-1807
[email protected]
[email protected]
REA CONSTRUCTION
(734) 946-8730
Also Heavy Industrial
Land Available
www.reaconstruction.net
OFFICE BUILDING
OFFICE SPACE
Northpointe Office Building
Entire
Office Building
2525 Telegraph, Bloomfield Hills, Mi
FOR LEASE
Up to 250,000 sq. ft.
South Genesee’s Premier Warehouse
Zoned B5H
With Rail
83,700
sq. ft.
With 4 Docks
Quality Tenants
Exceptional Value
Lease-Investment Opportunity
General or Medical Offices
Outstanding Visibility-Great Corporate Image
Target
Site
Costco
Lk
810-695-7700
Advertise your
goods and services in
Rd
Catellus Group, LLC
Northpointe
•
•
•
•
Great Corporate Headquarters
Excellent Location
BUILDING
IN
Ideal For Call Center
Former GM Truck And
Coach Headquarters
Move-In Condition
Fitness Center In Building
Covered Parking
Convenient Access To All
Freeways Including I-75 And M-59
51111 Woodward Ave., Pontiac, MI
www.ottawa-tower.com
re
ua
Sq
Don’t miss the chance to own this 1891
Historic Six Story Building. The Wright
K Building, zoned B5H is located two
blocks from Comerica Park and Ford
Field. People mover station and public
parking are within walking distance.
Beth Rose
Main floor nightclub Mezzanine and
Auctioneer, CAI
three bar areas, includes a class C liquor
license. Third Floor is a remodeled
Lora Koralewski
with storage. Fourth and Fifth
Auction Coordinator office
floors are two bedroom lofts and the
floor is a three bedroom Loft. This
Rose Auction Group, LLC sixth
is a must see property with great income
bethroseauction.com
potential in the very epi- center of
877-696-7653
Downtown Detroit.
45,000 sq. ft.
•
•
•
•
OPTICS WIT
H
ER
Florida - Michigan
Experience with all phases of commercial build-outs,
remodeling and alterations. Estimating, cost controls,
contracts, customer contact.
Part Time, Full Time or Per Diem
Phone: 239.292.2771
Email: [email protected]
VIDEOCONFERENCE SERVICES
Tele
grap
h
CONSTRUCTION
PAYMENT: All classified ads must be prepaid.
Checks, money order or Crain’s credit approval
accepted. Credit cards accepted.
CLOSING TIMES: Monday 3 p.m.,
one week prior to publication date.
Please call us for holiday closing times.
FIB
ANNOUNCEMENTS &
SERVICES
MAIL: Classified Advertising, Crain’s Detroit Business,
1155 Gratiot Ave., Detroit, MI 48207-2997.
Include name, company, address and phone number.
lin
nk
Fra
John Poponea & Associates, Inc
248-706-1300 Fax: 706-1395
248-706-1300
Rd
For more information, please contact:
Michael Dudash (248) 866-0991
[email protected]
www.haymancompany.com
CRAIN’S CLASSIFIEDS WORK! To Place Your Ad Call (313) 446-6068 or Fax (313) 446-1757
March 24, 2008
3/21/2008
11:18 AM
Page 1
CRAIN’S EXECUTIVE RECRUITER
ADMINISTRATIVE
REAL ESTATE
DIRECTOR OF ACADEMIC ADMINISTRATION –
OFFICE OF THE PROVOST
Wayne State University located in Detroit, Michigan invites applications for the position of
Director of Academic Administration for the Office of the Provost, reporting to the Provost
and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs.
The responsibilities of the Director of Academic Administration include the oversight of fiscal, business and human resources related operations and activities of the Provost Office.
This includes planning, developing and administering annual operating budgets, financial
reporting requirements, needs assessment, management oversight and support for human
resources activities; establishing and implementing organizational plans, meeting operational mission and objectives, determining manpower needs and appropriate staffing levels,
and conducting and providing analysis, studies and reports as requested. The successful
candidate will provide sound management to multiple financial and business areas of responsibility that are large in magnitude and complexity and encompass both university
funding sources and external funds. This position ensures adequate and clear communication with academic units on academic, administrative and budgetary matters; serves as a
liaison to internal and external contacts; serves on committees and boards; maintains professional relationships required to remain current with trends and developments in accounting, finance, management and related pertinent fields; resolves policy disputes, and
responds to faculty and staff needs as required.
QUALIFICATIONS:
The ideal candidate must have a Master’s degree from an accredited college or university
with a concentration in accounting or finance. He/she must have extensive knowledge of
accounting or finance practices and principles, preferably with experience in higher education or at a complex organization. The candidate must demonstrate considerable knowledge of computerized accounting systems, spreadsheets and data analysis, preferably in
an academic setting. Excellent communication, ability to work under stress, strong leadership, analytical, and problem solving skills are essential. Considerable supervisory and
managerial experience required.
Resumes will only be accepted at http://jobs.wayne.edu. The job posting number for the
Director of Academic Administration for the Office of the Provost is 035112. Review of
applications will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled. Wayne State
University is a premier institution of higher education offering more than 350 undergraduate
and graduate academic programs through 12 schools and colleges to more than 33,000
students in Metropolitan Detroit.
WSU is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer
INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY
FOR SALE or LEASE
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Software Developer: Mod existing sftware to cor
errors/adapt new hardware/upgrade inter & impr perf;
cons w/eng staff to eval interf btw hardware/software;
devel/direct software sys testing/validat proc; direct
software prog/devel of doc; Req: Bach Degree in
Appl Math & 2 yrs exp. Job loc: Bloomfield Hills, MI.
Resume: D Lytle, Allen Systems Group Inc.
1333 3rd Ave S, Naples, FL 34102.
Retail Real Estate
Licensed Agents
Are you looking for a unique
opportunity which provides for
unlimited income?
Call David S. Greene
248-415-2300
First Commercial
CRAIN’S EXECUTIVE
RECRUITER WORKS!
MANAGEMENT
Eastern Michigan University
Director, Financial Services, Student Affairs
Eastern Michigan University is accepting applications for a Director of Financial Services to
develop the auxiliary and general fund operating budgets including management, staff position
control, analysis, reporting, modeling and forecasting for the division of Student Affairs. This
position will also oversee the accounting function for the Auxiliary enterprises.
To learn more about EMU and the positionor to apply online for Posting #APSA0802 , go to:
http://www.emich.edu/jobs/. Cover letter, resume and other support documentation can be
attached to the application. Materials that are faxed, E-mailed or sent by U.S. mail to either
Human Resources or the division of Student Affairs will not be considered.
EMU is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer
www.emich.edu
CRAIN’S RESIDENTIAL PROPERTIES
WATERFRONT PROPERTY
A Great Reason to Live in Michigan!
Come home to your new custom home (your plans or
ours). Enjoy water sports and stunning sunsets.
In Brighton at HiltonPointeEstates.com
Advertise your
goods and services in
AUCTIONS
Bank Orders
46001 Grand River
Novi, MI
46035 Grand River
Novi, MI
•12,552 SqFt Available
•Great Small Building with
Grand River Frontage
•Owner Will Renovate to Suit
•Possible Retail or Industrial
Use
•Adjacent to the Rock
Financial Showplace
•2,000 -13,300 SqFt Available
•Condo Sale Possible
•Possible Retail, Office or
Tech User Space
•Office Built to Suit
•Frontage on Grand River
•Available Fall 2008
248.848.4127
46039 Grand River
Novi , MI
•32,225 SqFt Available
•Great Multi-User Building
•Clear Span Space
•Possible Indoor Activity
Center
•Adjacent to the Rock
Financial Showplace
•Near I-96 Interchanges
For More Info Please Contact:
Riverfront Land, Bay City
7 acres, 983 ft. on Saginaw R.
Former Marina, 4000 sq.ft. Bar/Restaurant
$279,000 248 465-1995
LYON TOWNSHIP/BANK OWNED
12-unit rental townhouse project available.
Get a great deal on this investment opportunity.
Contact Herb Lawson at 248-290-5300 ext. 302
OFFICE SPACE
Bloomfield Hills "A" Office -- Window office(s)
available in existing law firm suite; optional secretarial
station; includes library/conference room and kitchen;
optional use of internet, fax, copier and scanner 248-645-1450
Private Office Space In Downtown Franklin
Ready for your law firm, accounting firm, or other
business. 1,200 square feet includes two offices with
balconies, conference room, kitchenette, reception
desk, and supply closet. Call 248-865-9150
Milford Village Office Space Available
New Construction, move in immediately, excellent
parking, build out included, walking distance to shops
and restaurants. Suites from 400 sf to 9000 sf
248-343-6487
Armada Township, Bruce Township, Metamora, Hartland,
Lapeer, Northville, St. Clair, Washington Township
New Homes and Condos!
Originally priced from
$175,000 – $2.5 Million!
RETAIL SPACE
Suggested
opening bids from
$50,000 – $1,000,000!
18597 Steep Hollow Ct, Northville, MI
New 6,000 sq. ft. retail space for rent.
Premier location in Mid-Town on Forest
Ave., between Cass and Woodward. Surrounded by residential apartments, lofts
and condominiums on WSU Campus. Excellent for a market or similar business.
Contact 313-577-2313
WAREHOUSE STORAGE SPACE
plus
7 Subdivisions
with 273 Homesites
BUY ONE, SOME OR ALL
SATURDAY APRIL 19, 2008
Heated Storage For Big Boy Toys
Motor Homes, Classic Cars,Industrial Equip.,
Individual Units 700-5000 sq.ft, Oversize
Doors. Located on Van Dyke Fwy Near
31 Mile Rd In Washington Twp.
800.747.3342 X806
www.nrc.com/806
Call 1-586-336-9999
Turnkey Storage
Crain’s Classifieds Gets Results
BRIEFLY
UM economic report predicts
growth will pick up by next year
In a quarterly report compiled
by the University of Michigan Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics, economists predict:
A 1.5 percent decline in national economic output in the current quarter and a no-growth second quarter, followed by a gain of
2.5 percent in the second half of
2008 and a 2.9 percent gain in real
gross domestic product in 2009.
Housing starts will be less
than 1 million this year, down
from 1.8 million in 2006 and 1.3 million in 2007. They predict a rebound to 1.1 million next year.
Flat job growth this year and
an increase of 500,000 jobs next
year despite a climb in the national unemployment rate from the
current 4.8 percent to 5.8 percent
by the end of next year.
— Tom Henderson
Beringea invests in English
software, security company
Farmington Hills-based Beringea
L.L.C. has invested $3.5 million in
Optic Vision Ltd., an English company that makes software and electronic equipment for homeland
and cyber security.
The company offers systems that
include access control, electronic
intruder detection and closed-circuit television. The funding will be
used to grow the company.
— Tom Henderson
First Spirit Bancorp seeks funds
Detroit-based First Spirit Bancorp
Inc. is circulating a private-placement memorandum by the Grosse
Pointe investment banking firm of
Donnelly Penman & Partners that
hopes to sell 1 million shares of
stock at $10 a share.
The bank, which hopes to open
this year, has begun renovating
the Brinker Building on Michigan
Avenue in southwest Detroit as its
headquarters. The bank wants to
target Hispanic and black business
owners in that area.
Listed among the proposed
board of directors is Marvin Winans,
one of the founders of the Winans
gospel group.
— Tom Henderson
MEGA makes grants
Phil Konopitski
[email protected]
34975 W Twelve Mile Rd •Farmington Hills • Michigan • 48331 • www.friedmanrealestate.com
INVESTMENT PROPERTY
AUCTION
Page 27
In cooperation with Michigan Real Estate Services
3719 Westnedge Ave, Kalamazoo, MI Broker’s Lic.#6505265388
Three local companies received
state tax credits from the Michigan
Economic Growth Authority this
week:
Ricardo Inc. received a 10-year
credit valued at $991,000 for its
planned $2 million investment in
hybrid and electric vehicle battery
development in Van Buren Township.
Sakti3, a high-tech startup in
Ann Arbor, received a 10-year credit valued at $2.3 million for its plans
to invest $1.1 million to commercialize a manufacturing pro-cess for the
development of high-power automotive batteries. The technology
stemmed from research performed
at the University of Michigan by CEO
Ann Marie Sastry.
North American Bancard, Troy,
will receive $21.5 million in tax
credits in exchange for adding
1,500 jobs over the next 12 years.
— Chad Halcom
3/21/2008
9:45 AM
Page 1
Page 28
March 24, 2008
Studies mixed on state’s 2008 retail outlook
BY NANCY KAFFER
There’s good news — and some bad news
— on the horizon for Michigan retailers in
2008, according to two separate studies released last month by the Michigan Retailers
Association and Marcus and Millichap Real Estate Investment Services.
The good news is the MRA is forecasting
modest retail growth later this year, according to its report.
But the study by national commercial real
estate brokers Marcus and Millichap predicts
flat employment, increasing vacancy rates
and decreasing sales for Detroit-area retailers.
The MRA reports that its January retail
performance index increased to 47.5, almost
10 points up from December’s dismal holiday sales. The index, a joint project of the
MRA and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago,
is based on a monthly survey of the association’s 5,500 members.
The association is projecting 3.3 percent
sales growth for mid-2008, driven in part by
the federal government’s economic stimulus
package, said Tom Scott, communications
director for the MRA.
“There are some feelings out there that
some of the economic problems are going to
start to work themselves out,” Scott said.
“It’s still a long road. … I don’t think anyone’s looking at a major turnaround or a
huge improvement, but it sounds from our
survey that they’re not expecting it to get
worse.”
Marcus and Millichap’s National Retail
Index cites declining investment activity —
down 35 percent in 2007 — a stagnant job
market and flat retail sales in ranking Detroit 41st out of 43 markets studied, a drop of
one place from the previous year.
That index is based on forecast supply
and demand conditions, and examines factors such as employment, retail sales, asking rent, vacancy trends and sales trends.
Rents are expected to remain nearly flat,
with a projected 2 percent growth rate that
most likely won’t keep pace with inflation,
said Steve Chaben, a first vice president at
Marcus and Millichap’s Detroit office.
And continued development of retail
space, though declining, is expected to lead
to intense competition for tenants and sales
between new projects and existing retail
centers, according to the
report.
“We have slightly higher vacancy rates than
you’d want to see, putting
landlords in more of a
competitive situation,”
Chaben said.
Construction of retail
space in the Detroit area
in 2008 is expected to drop
Chaben
47 percent from 2007.
In 2006, 4.1 million square feet of retail
construction came online in the Detroit metropolitan area. The estimate for 2007 is 2.6
million square feet, according to the report
— which bodes well for Michigan’s recovery, Chaben said.
“Developers in this marketplace have
showed restraint and responsibility in not
overbuilding the market,” he said. “If
there’s a bright spot in the overall real estate dynamics, it’s that it’s not an overbuilt
market.”
New developments like the Pavilions of
Troy, a 600,000-square-foot mixed-use project
geared toward an upscale market, should
fare well, Chaben said.
Shopping centers with no anchor stores
are seeing more impact, said Dave Prueter,
state director of the International Council of
Shopping Centers.
“The little strip center with no drugstore
or food store, that’s the area that’s first hit,
so you won’t see those kinds of projects coming out of the ground,” he said.
Retail construction has a roughly two
year start-to-finish timeline, Prueter said, so
developments should continue to come online through 2008.
Though the metro area’s investment activity declined 35 percent in 2007, the area
can continue to attract out-of-state, yieldoriented investors, Chaben said, drawn by
the Holy Grail of real estate — the prospect
of buying low and selling high.
In 2007, Chaben said, 74 percent of his office’s transactions involved investors from
outside Southeast Michigan.
Nancy
Kaffer:
(313)
446-0412,
[email protected]
Computer forensics firms get boost from new evidence rules
BY CHAD HALCOM
It’s not the Emmy Award-winning “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” but computer forensics
holds a growing lure for law firms
and human resource directors investigating workplace disputes.
Driving some of the growth are
new amendments to the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure, which
took effect about a year ago. The
new rules address standards of evidence for “e-discovery,” or electronic records that are admissible
for civil cases in federal courts.
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ter for Computer Forensics in Southfield.
CCF has reported revenue
growth of 30 percent or more each
year since 2004, with referrals
from local law offices, but more
coming directly from client firms.
Revenue was nearly $700,000 in
2007 and is projected to reach
$920,000 this year, based on that
rate of growth, said Michael Ahern, vice president of business development at CCF.
“Our growth is going to go up
partly because of the attention people have to pay now to the new
rules of evidence in the federal system,” Ahern said.
“And we expect the Michigan judicial system will also change its
rules on electronic evidence within
a year. Attorneys need to know how
to handle this evidence properly,”
he said.
The CCF has five employees,
mostly former law enforcement officials with some background in computer crimes and electronic investigation, although Ahern said much
of the company’s caseload involves
intellectual-property disputes, theft
of trade secrets, employee misconduct and civil claims.
A smaller part of its business involves sexual harassment in the
workplace, Internet pornography
on work computers and some
criminal investigation work by
contract with Kent County.
“A lot of times, we get word from
an employer that might have just
fired an employee and we’re expecting a dispute or something
that might come up, so we need to
preserve evidence from the time of
a person’s employment,” said Ives
Potrafka, senior forensic examiner at CCF. “Or, we might hear that
they feel they have a set of reasons
to fire someone, and now we need
to prove it (before they proceed).”
Much of the company’s caseload
comes from local law firms, such
Our growth is
“going
to go up
partly because of the
attention people
have to pay now to
the new rules of
evidence in the
federal system.
”
Michael Ahern,
vice president of
business development,
Center for Computer Forensics
as Miller Canfield Paddock and Stone
P.L.C. or Johnson Rosati LaBarge
Aseltyne & Field P.C.
Potrafka also testifies in court
on cases where the company has
researched computer files and
electronic data — including the
2005 murder trial of Paul Bernard,
now serving life in prison.
At issue in that case was the timing of the death of Bernard’s estranged wife, Mimi, since electronic records showed he was logged
on by modem to America Online
for the entire night.
But Potrafka was able to show
that no user-driven online activity
occurred during the approximate
time when prosecutors believed
the defendant killed her.
J. Stott Matthews, president and
owner of Spectrum Computer Forensics and Risk Management L.L.C. in
Franklin, said his small company
sometimes competes with CCF,
but the market is growing enough
for both companies.
“We understand their reputation and the quality of their reporting. But I have 15 years of prior
management experience in (automaker and) supplier firms, and
they are mostly made up of former
law enforcement guys,” he said.
“There’s nothing wrong with
that, but some clients may feel
more comfortable with them and
some prefer to deal with someone
like me, who has been in the positions and faced the same challenges they do.”
The Center for Computer Forensics was founded in 1997 as an offshoot of Southfield-based Data Recovery Group, and also is co-owned
by DRG owners B. Patrick Ahern,
his wife, Deanna, and son Brian,
Michael’s brother. DRG was started in 1987 and now has offices in
Southfield, Chicago, San Leandro,
Calif., and Charlotte, N.C.
DRG’s multistate presence has
meant a large share of work for
CCF in California and other states,
Ahern said. He estimates the company does 60 percent of its referrals within Michigan with most in
Southeast Michigan.
Services range from a simple $300
“preservation” job of storing a copy
of the data on a single computer, to
up to tens of thousands of dollars for
an extensive investigation of a massive computer network.
A common mistake employers
make, Ahern and Potrafka said, is
to rely on an internal employee or
information technology department not trained in computer
forensics to preserve e-mails or
other records.
Any additional activity on a computer file can be subject to scrutiny
or cross-examination in court.
“With paper and print documents, it was always very easy to
destroy the evidence,” Ahern said.
“Now with electronic data, there
are copies and it’s much harder to
destroy, but it’s very easy to
change the records. That’s why the
preservation side of this business
is so important.”
Chad Halcom: (313) 446-6796,
[email protected].
3/21/2008
4:39 PM
Page 1
March 24, 2008
Page 29
Burdened by debt, Borders Group Upstart football league sued
suspends dividends, may be sold by Ford Field Management
BY NANCY KAFFER
With its stock price declining
and debt mounting, everything’s
on the table for Ann Arbor-based
Borders Group Inc.
The company announced last
week it was exploring putting itself up for sale, had received a financial commitment and a possible offer to purchase from a major
shareholder, and was suspending
dividends to free up more cash to
run the business.
Despite a $42.5 million loan commitment from shareholder Pershing
Square
Capital
Management L.P.
that will allow
the company to
operate through
the end of 2008
and into 2009,
CEO
George
Jones said in a
Thursday conference call with in- Jones
vestors the company will need further funding.
Though a sale might be good for
the company, it’s not the only option, Jones said.
“That one aspect has leapt out in
the headlines,” said public-relations director Anne Roman.
“There could be a better way to
WE
structure our debt,” Jones said,
adding that it’s important to mention all options, when putting out a
year-end release.
Pershing also has offered to buy
some of the company’s international holdings for $125 million.
The company’s fiscal year was
capped by dismal holiday sales,
Jones said, and Borders doesn’t
have the cash on hand to meet the
2009 goals set in its strategic plan.
Preparations for the launch of
a new e-commerce site — online
sales are currently transacted by
Amazon.com, a competitor — and the
cost of a new Ann Arbor concept
store have taken a toll, Jones said.
“We’ve made some strategic investments, and we’re going to get a
good benefit out of Borders.com, but
we haven’t seen it yet,” he said.
Jones said he’s been concerned
about Borders’ debt load since joining the company roughly 18 months
ago. In the current economy, some
funding options weren’t available.
Industry experts point to the
proliferation of online music
sources and low-priced books
available at discount retailers, but
Jones said the most intense pressure to discount comes from the
store’s direct competitors.
Nancy Kaffer: (313) 446-0412,
[email protected].
BY BILL SHEA
The now-dormant All American Football League, struggling
to find $30 million in financing,
is staying mum on Ford Field suing it for nearly $1 million.
A breach of contract lawsuit
filed March 18 in U.S. District
Court in Detroit indicates Ford
Field Management L.L.C. seeks
$925,000 from Atlanta-based
AAFL Enterprises L.L.C. It’s also
asking for a late payment of 18
percent and attorney fees and
court costs. The league has not
filed a response.
The case has been assigned to
Judge Victoria Roberts. Ford
Field is represented by the Troy
office of Bodman L.L.P. No counsel was listed for the AAFL.
Both the stadium and the
league declined to comment.
Ford Field executives previously
said the venue was prepared to
move on without the new league.
The league and stadium
inked a deal July 18 for the
AAFL’s Team Michigan to play
five home games at Ford Field
at $200,000 apiece. The lease
called for a half-stadium seating configuration for 30,000 of
the venue’s 65,000 seats, al-
WANTED: HEALTH CARE
HEROES, POWER SELLERS
though the league had sold no
more than 2,000-3,000 tickets for
Team Michigan. The team deposited $75,000 to hold the dates,
court papers show.
The first game at Ford Field
was scheduled for April 19.
On March 13, the AAFL said it
was postponing its inaugural
season a year while its owner,
student-loan tycoon Marcus
Katz, lines up an additional $30
million in investments to operate the league. Katz, who spent
$30 million to launch the league,
saw the money he set aside to
run the AAFL evaporate when
the subprime mortgage crisis
spilled over into student loans.
A message left for Fitz Ollison, Team Michigan’s director
of communication, wasn’t returned. The team leased an office in Livonia and was planning a training camp for 60
players in Wixom.
The for-profit professional
league, whose gimmick was allowing only players with college degrees and tapping into
popular college football markets, also had teams in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee and Texas.
Bill Shea: (313) 446-1626,
[email protected]
Crain’s Detroit Business is seeking
nominations for Health Care
Heroes, a special report on health
care
leaders
that will
run in
the
Aug. 11 issue.
Our winners are chosen in four
categories:
Corporate achievement in health
care, advancements in health care,
physician and allied health (an
individual from nursing or allied
health fields.)
The deadline is May 19. A panel of
health care judges will choose the
winners.
Are you a Power Seller? Do you
know one? We’re
talking about the
kind of
salesperson who
makes the most of
every opportunity and
demonstrates sincere concern for
customers.
If so, let us know. Crain’s Detroit
Business will profile a selection of
the region’s top sellers in its July 14
issue.
Nomination deadline is March 31.
For both award programs, visit
www.crainsdetroit.com/nominate
for the online form.
Questions? Contact Jennette
Smith,
assistant
managing
editor/Focus, at (313) 446-1622; or
Jennifer Dunn in marketing at (313)
446-6786 or [email protected].
BEL I EV E I N V EST I NG
as well
as a science.
IS A N A RT
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©2008, National City Corporation®
CS-29860
3/21/2008
3:47 PM
Page 1
Page 30
March 24, 2008
How Is Your
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By attending NA 2008, you will see the latest equipment
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Over 450 exhibits from the industry’s top solution
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You will also have the opportunity to learn the latest
trends, technologies, and innovations during more than
60 educational sessions held right on the show floor.
NA 2008 Keynote:
How Smart Companies Use Environmental
Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and
Build High Performance Supply Chains
Green to Gold author Andrew Winston will explore
the business case for creating sustainable supply chains
during the NA 2008 Keynote. Learn what works and what doesn’t
when companies go green. And discover how to drive new revenues,
cut costs, and reduce risk.
Plan Now to Attend NA 2008
NA 2008 is sponsored by:
Thousands of professionals from companies like yours will attend
NA 2008. Take advantage of the education, networking, and
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State expects increase
of $50 million from film
bills; come back, Al Roker
BY BILL SHEA
If Al Roker comes back to Detroit to film more episodes of his
new reality cable television show
“DEA,” he could save up to 42 percent of his state business taxes.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm is expected this week to sign legislation
that will give the nation’s deepest
tax rebates and incentives on
movie and television production
for work done in Michigan.
The new measures are designed
to entice more film work to Michigan, which saw just $4 million in
movie production work last year.
With the new incentives, the state
could see $50 million to $100 million in movie work the rest of this
year, said Janet Lockwood, director of the Michigan Film Office,
which approves
the rebates.
“I have 62
scripts on my
desk,” she said.
“Normally, we
get six a year.”
The producers of “DEA” Lockwood
didn’t ask for
tax breaks, Lockwood said, and it’s
unclear how much they spent in
Michigan. Under the new incentives, spending as little as $50,000
will trigger financial breaks, but to
reach the maximum requires hiring Michigan crews. The previous
threshold was $200,000.
The first hour-long installment
of the six-episode “DEA” series
premieres at 11 p.m. April 2 on
Spike TV. Six months of production
wrapped up last week and did use
Michigan film crews. “DEA” follows members of a federal Drug Enforcement Agency task force in Detroit during operations — such as
surveillance and raids.
The show, similar to such law
enforcement series as “Cops,” is a
production of New York Citybased Al Roker Entertainment Inc.,
which is owned by the gregarious
NBC “Today Show” weatherman.
The production company since
1992 has done shows on the Food
Network, Court TV, Lifetime, Oxygen,
Discovery, A&E, The History Channel,
NBC News and PBS.
The “DEA” series, or at least its
first episode made available to the
media, doesn’t paint Detroit in a
positive light. The narration introduction over a montage of DEA
drug raids says, “Nowhere is the
danger more real than in Detroit,
Michigan” and “It’s a deadly city”
while pointing out Detroit’s high
murder rate and proliferation of
guns.
The film crews wore bulletproof
vests, Roker said last week.
“When you’re doing something
like this, you prepare for the
worst,” he said, noting that everything came off without a problem
despite the dangers. “The big surprise was it went really well. Anything could go wrong with this.”
FILM BILLS
Highlights of the film incentive
package expected to be signed by
the governor this week:
䡲 A 40 percent Michigan Business
Tax rebate for qualified production
costs. It drops to 30 percent on
non-Michigan crew hires. An
additional 2 percent credit would
be available for projects in older
“core” communities.
䡲 A 25 percent MBT credit for an
investment of $250,000 or more
in film or digital media production
infrastructure.
䡲 Eligibility for production
companies to apply for Michigan
Economic Growth Authority tax
credits and to participate in the
state’s capital access program.
䡲 Loans of up to $15 million
under a program that’s part of the
21st Century Jobs Fund. Up-front
loans to production companies in
the amount of expected tax credits
also would be available.
䡲 A 50 percent MBT rebate for
production company costs of
providing training to state
residents for certain positions.
䡲 Application and redemption fees
on film-related tax credits would
capitalize a fund to support the
Michigan Film Office. Half of state
earnings on some film-related
loans and investments also would
go into the fund.
The production company considered a number of cities before
settling on Detroit, Roker said. He
didn’t have a particular reason the
city was picked.
“It was just a
feeling. It just
felt right,” said
Roker, who previously
has
done
remote
shots for the
“Today Show”
from the Detroit
auto show.
Roker
The idea for
the show stemmed from a Court TV
show Roker did a couple of years
ago that involved him talking to
DEA agents.
“I thought, ‘There’s a series
here,’ ” he said. “(The DEA was)
intrigued by it. They had never
done anything like this before.”
The task force was made up of
DEA agents, Detroit and Redford
Township police and a Michigan
State Police trooper. The agents involved in the filming were not undercover, but some names were
changed and some faces distorted
to prevent recognition.
“It was a positive experience for
the group,” said John Arvanitis,
the DEA associate special agent in
charge in Detroit. “DEA has traditionally been a non-transparent
type of agency.”
Roker doesn’t know if they’ll be
back to Detroit for more episodes.
“We’ll see how the ratings are.
We may come back to Detroit or go
to another city,” he said.
Bill Shea: (313) 446-1626,
[email protected]
3/21/2008
5:44 PM
Page 1
March 24, 2008
Page 31
Most states have high-risk
health insurance pools
Chelsea Community Hospital to
merge with St. Joseph Mercy Health
At least 34 other states have high-risk health insurHowever, the Blues would pay the pool’s adminisance pools similar to the one being debated by the Sen- trative costs, which has been estimated at 10 percent
ate Health Policy Committee. The pool concept is sup- of claims. In addition, the Blues would pay all costs
ported by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and with the pool for the first two years. Assessments
contested by a number of competing health insurers would be imposed on competing health insurers
and consumer groups.
based on market share if claims exIn 29 states, the high-risk pools —
ceeded 105 percent of premiums.
designed to cover individuals with
“No high-risk pool charges stanmedical conditions that essentially
dard market rates,” said the Health
make them otherwise uninsurable —
Affairs report. “All charge a higher
are subsidized by a financial assesspremium — typically 125 to 200 perment on all insurance carriers in the
cent of the average standard rate for
individual health market. The other
comparable coverage — and also
five states, including Tennessee, are
vary the premium for age and other
funded by a combination of federal,
factors.”
state and other assessments.
A Blue Cross spokesperson said
The 34 states include Illinois, Wisthe combination of the Blues providconsin, Kentucky, Minnesota and
ing health insurance to people at the
Iowa. Ohio and Pennsylvania do not
lowest cost and the high-risk pool,
have high-risk pools. Florida’s highwhich the Blues also call the Guaranrisk pool is closed because of lack of
teed Access Plan, would give Michifunding.
gan one of the nation’s best safety
In a 2002 report on high-risk pools,
nets.
Report, Health Affairs
the journal Health Affairs offered
“The rest of the (pools) are more
these cautions: “In most states, the
proportionately spread out in the fihigh-risk pool mirrors the individual
nancial cost structure if they involve
market’s problems: Coverage is expensive, the wait- insurer assessment than the proposed Michigan moding period for coverage of pre-existing conditions is el (so insurers in those plans more equally share burlong, and benefits may be limited.”
den),” Helen Stojic, a Blues’ spokesperson, said in a
A review of the pools by Crain’s indicates that statement. “The Michigan House bill calls for BCBSM
about half are operated by Blues plans and the rest ad- to assume the lion’s share of costs for GAP among the
ministered by states or quasi-state agencies. One of insurers involved. So that is one way that Michigan’s
the contested aspects of Michigan’s proposed high- model is unique.”
risk pool is that Blue Cross would administer it.
— Jay Greene
Chelsea Community Hospital has
signed a letter of intent to merge
with St. Joseph Mercy Health System, a member of Novi-based Trinity Health.
Over the next three to four
months, the organizations will
negotiate merger terms, including a plan to fund an unspecified
amount of facility improvements
and equipment purchases at
Chelsea, said Garry Faja, St.
Joseph’s president and CEO.
Kathleen Griffiths, Chelsea’s
president and CEO, said the
board of the 113-bed hospital had
discussed possible deals with
other hospitals but settled on St.
Joseph because of its long-standing relationship.
For example, Chelsea and St.
Joseph share the same hospitalbased medical groups in anesthesia, radiology, emergency medicine and hospitalist medicine.
Faja even served on the Chelsea
board at one time.
No high-risk
“pool
charges
standard market
rates. All charge a
higher premium . . .
and also vary the
premium for age
and other factors.
”
Blues: Rival insurance bills emerge
“The board looked at affiliation because it has been increasingly difficult to continue to survive and thrive,” Griffiths said.
A recently completed master facility plan calls for facility improvements and the purchase of
an electronic medical record system, she said.
“Access to capital is very difficult for a small hospital,” Griffiths said.
Faja said St. Joseph plans to
make capital improvements at
Chelsea Community and install a
new electronic medical record
system this summer that will be
linked to St. Joseph.
In 2007, Chelsea Community
reported net income of $728,000
on net patient revenue of $82 million, Griffiths said. In 2007, St.
Joseph, which includes three
hospitals, earned operating income of $53 million on net revenue of $760 million for a 7 percent margin, Faja said.
Jay Greene: (313) 446-0325,
[email protected]
SOUTHFIELD AREA COMMERCIAL
REAL ESTATE SHOWCASE
Leading local and national brokerage firms display
Southfield area property listings for lease or sale..
■ From Page 3
five hearings.
Andrew Hetzel, the Blues’ vice
president of corporate communications, said the Blues oppose being required to put money into the
fund George proposes, which he
described as a government program.
“Anyone who is concerned
about the free market and government intrusion of the free market
should be concerned,” Hetzel said.
He expressed hope that other
senators would present alternative
bills or amendments that would restore the high-risk pool and take
out the $100 million fund provision. “Clearly there was sentiment
on the committee to introduce other proposals,” Hetzel said.
Hetzel said the high-risk pool is
a necessary component to reforming the individual health insurance market because 34 other
states have it.
“It is a means of providing market stability that is a model Michigan should pursue,” he said.
Several groups opposing the
original House bills are taking a
close look at George’s substitute
plan, particularly the provision
that would allow the Blues’ Accident Fund Insurance Co. of America, a
for-profit workers’ compensation
insurer, to enter other lines of
business.
“It is a giant mistake to allow
Blue Cross to enter other lines of
insurance,” said Kurt Gallinger,
vice president and counsel for
Amerisure Cos., Farmington Hills.
“We recognized the extreme time,
BY JAY GREENE
SENATE BILLS
State Sen. Tom George, RKalamazoo, has introduced
substitutes to House Bills 52825284 that would:
I Require Blue Cross Blue Shield
of Michigan to pay $100 million
into a new Charitable and Social
Mission Fund that would provide
subsidies, possibly in the form of
tax credits, to people who buy
individual insurance policies. The
insurance commissioner would
have the authority to order
additional payments into the fund
if it’s determined the Blues have
“excess” surplus.
I In exchange, the Blues’
workers’ comp subsidiary,
Accident Fund Insurance Co. of
America, would be allowed sell
automobile, life and other propertycasualty insurance products.
I Unlike the House bills,
continue to allow the state
attorney general to challenge Blues
rate increases.
I Like the House bills, eliminate
all insurers’ ability to reassess an
individual’s health each year and
base rates on that assessment.
Instead, insurers could perform a
medical assessment only when an
individual first buys coverage from
that company.
money and influence that the
Blues have been able to exert in
Lansing.”
Gallinger, who also represents
the seven-member Coalition For A
Fair & Competitive Insurance Market,
said he hopes George calls specific
hearings on the Senate substitutes
for H.B. 5284 and 5285. Those two
bills address the Blues’ Accident
Fund.
“There hasn’t been any testimony on these bills in the Senate to
date,” he said. “We hope we get
equal time.”
A spokesperson for the Coalition
for Access and Affordability in Michigan, which represents commercial
insurers and is opposed to the
health insurance bills, said
George’s proposal is welcome
news for consumers.
“Reforming the way Blue Cross
Blue Shield does business in
Michigan affects millions of people
and deserves just that kind of careful consideration,” said spokesperson Denise DeCook in a statement.
George presented his proposal
to fellow Senate Republicans early
last week, before Wednesday’s
committee meeting, and said he is
now waiting for other committee
members’ ideas. He has proposed
six further hearings, stretching
through April 30.
Jacobs, who said it’s important
that the legislation address insurance access and affordability,
among other things, said she
wants to compare George’s plan
with the House plan and other proposals that may be offered.
“We only have part of the puzzle
right now,” she said.
Jay Greene: (313) 446-0325,
[email protected];
Amy Lane: (517) 371-5355,
[email protected]
Thursday, April 10, 2008
7:30 - 10:30 a.m.
Millennium Theatre
15600 J.L. Hudson Drive, Southfield, MI 48075
Call Rochelle Freeman at (248)796-4161 or
E-mail [email protected] for more info.
3/21/2008
4:38 PM
Page 1
Page 32
March 24, 2008
Costs: Customers’ share of overruns likely to come under scrutiny
■ From Page 1
The companies cite a variety of
reasons for the higher costs,
among them widened project scope
and employee training needs.
In a current rate case for DTE’s
Detroit Edison Co., the Association of
Businesses Advocating Tariff Equity, a
group of large industrial energy
users, is seeking information on
why costs increased beyond Edison’s testimony in 2004 that estimated the price as $246 million.
“An upgrade like this is probably a reasonable undertaking for a
utility, although it’s going to cost a
gazillion dollars,” said Robert
Strong, general counsel for
ABATE. “Our interest is to make
sure that only just and reasonable
costs are included in rates, and we
want to make sure that whatever
the prudent costs are, are exactly
that.”
Edison said it seeks to recover
about $23 million spread over five
years, a fraction of total costs. It is
the first rate case to reflect the cost
of the system, and Edison does not
know how much it would seek to
recover in future cases.
CMS’ Consumers Energy Co., in future gas and electric cases, plans to
seek full customer recovery of its
expenses.
Michigan’s utilities aren’t alone
in such information-technology
undertakings.
Ed Legge, media representative
for the Edison Electric Institute, the
Washington-based trade association for electric utilities, said companies around the country have
done various upgrades to improve
how they operate.
He said such projects can be
“massive. We’re talking about
enormous capital expenses, and
systemwide.”
DTE’s project was the largest
computer upgrade in the compa-
$120 million
Cost over budgeted amount for
DTE computer system upgrades.
$33 million
Cost over budgeted amount for
CMS computer system
upgrades.
Why?
The companies cite a variety of
reasons, such as widened
project scopes and
employee training.
Who pays?
Customers will be asked to pay
for at least some of
the expenses.
ny’s 105-year history.
“We’re a very old company that
obviously would have entered into
the computer age by one application at a time,” said Ron May, senior vice president of major enterprise projects. “So over the course
of time, you end up having something that is 40 years old, 30 years
old, 20 years old.”
He said that with a “fleet of activity” spread between Detroit Edison and Michigan Consolidated Gas
Co. utilities, and the need for both
the DTE utilities and nonregulated
ventures to continue to grow, “we
wanted this all to talk together and
to be in a position where things
were modern.”
At the project’s core is business
software that replaces a variety of
information systems, many at or
near the end of their usefulness,
with a central, integrated system.
Benefits include standardized
processes across the company, reduced transaction times, improved
data collection and inventory management, and better controls to
support federal Sarbanes-Oxley
Act financial and accounting requirements.
The project augments DTE’s
“performance excellence process,”
an ongoing effort to cut costs and
improve the performance of DTE
utilities and corporate-support
functions. The company estimates
that the computer upgrade will
generate about $75 million of the
more than $300 million in annual
cost savings in the performanceexcellence initiative.
May said factors responsible for
the project’s increased costs include the development of a computer center that strengthened the
company’s ability to respond to security threats and changes needed
to accommodate DTE business expansion.
More extensive training for DTE
employees and vendors and a
three-month delay in the final
switch to the new system also
added costs. The upgrade touched
some 200 DTE legal entities, thousands of vendors, contract workers and DTE’s now-10,300 employees.
Glitches included delays in
payments to vendors as the both
parties adjusted to a move from
paper to electronic billing. New
service hookups were also delayed as data flows smoothed out
and employees became more familiar with the system.
Mick Hiser, director of the service quality division at the Michigan Public Service Commission, said
the hookup delays are “the sort of
things that do happen” with such
PROJECT VENDORS
IBM and SAP AG were the main
vendors for the computer upgrade
projects at DTE Energy Co. CMS
Energy Corp. used Deloitte L.L.P.
and SAP AG. Neither IBM nor SAP
returned calls from Crain’s last
week.
The DTE upgrade: DTE said that
IBM’s work included developing a
process for software
implementation, providing IBM
employees to assist in the
upgrade, and providing hardware.
IBM also provided and integrated
software developed by MRO
Software Inc., a company that IBM
purchased during the course of the
upgrade.
SAP provided software and training
to assist DTE in adapting the SAP
software.
DTE said products were delivered
on time, but DTE chose to upgrade
SAP and MRO software to newer
versions after the first phase of the
DTE project was complete in 2005,
prompting some additional
rewriting needs.
The CMS upgrade: CMS said
Deloitte L.L.P. helped it integrate
the new SAP software into
operations. The company said SAP
provided software and assisted
CMS with the planning and
transition to the new system.
Deloitte declined to comment,
citing professional standards that
preclude the firm from discussing
or disclosing client information.
— Amy Lane
projects. He said that, overall, the
PSC has not seen any major issues
affecting DTE customers.
CMS’ project, built on an SAP
integrated software platform, will
replace more than 100 systems and
upgrade all of the company’s main
business areas.
Benefits include a new cus-
tomer-service system that will provide real-time information when a
customer calls, enabling a call center representative to know the status of a service request and if a
worker has been dispatched, said
Susan Swan, vice president of operations for Consumers Energy.
The computer upgrade will enable the utility to more rapidly relay work orders to field crews after
a customer’s request for service.
Consumers is also replacing the
system that handles restoration of
power, enabling the utility to more
precisely determine the geographic scope of the outages and fix
them.
“A lot of manual work is eliminated, a lot of duplicative work is
eliminated, by going to a comprehensive system like this,” Swan
said.
The company expects to save $35
million to $50 million a year. The
project’s impact spans customers,
CMS’ 7,900 employees and vendors, although the company is not
moving entirely to electronic payment for vendors. Swan said project costs have risen as the company has expanded the scope. For
example, Consumers added software that automates internal controls necessary to comply with
Sarbanes-Oxley. Other software
automates the maintenance and
replacement of equipment.
Swan said that the project is
“the largest business transformation effort” that the company has
undertaken in its 121-year history.
Consumers Energy had planned
on launching the system April 1
but has pushed back the start to
July 1, as testing continues.
Amy Lane: (517) 371-5355,
[email protected]
Grocers: High-end stores expand despite stale economy
■ From Page 1
popping up on Parent Street alongside the
market’s Main Street storefront, once the
market’s impromptu loading area.
The store now occupies an entire block,
and, with the interior additions, the 54-yearold store’s footprint has grown to 65,000
square feet.
And Holiday isn’t the only high-end store
that’s growing.
In the last four years, Westborn Market
owner Mark Anusbigian has remodeled all
three of his stores — in Berkley, Dearborn
and Livonia — pouring about $11 million
into slate floors, soft lighting, new coolers
and other improvements. Plum Market has
opened two stores — in Ann Arbor and
Bloomfield Township, with a Royal Oak
store in the works. Last year, Papa Joe’s
opened a 30,000-square-foot Rochester
“gourmetrion” in a complex for a reported
cost of $35 million. Both Plum’s Matt Jonna
and Papa Joe’s Tony Curtis declined to be
interviewed.
Jim Hiller, whose Hiller’s Markets are fullservice independent grocery stores with
some gourmet offerings, plans to open a
Commerce Township store in April and a
South Lyon location next year, at about $6.5
million a store. His revenue is growing. After the new store opens, Hiller expects to
bring in $200 million this year, up $30 million from 2007’s $170 million.
“I think that there is a misperception that
Michigan has a lack of opportunity,” Hiller
said. “In fact, the lights are not turned out,
everybody is not leaving; there are plenty of
people in the state of Michigan who are continuing to work and thrive.”
And, apparently, they’re hungry.
When money’s tight, specialization is the
key, said Neil Stern, senior partner with
McMillanDoolittle L.L.P., a Chicago-based retail consulting firm.
“There’s been a real attraction for people
who are able to deliver a low price. WalMart’s doing well, as is Costco. But on the
other end, there’s been relatively decent insulation on the high end for grocery,” he
said. “Where you don’t want to be is the grocery store in the middle, the Farmer Jack,
where you haven’t distinguished yourself in
any way.”
No less important are demographics, said
restaurant and grocery consultant Kenneth
Dalto of Farmington Hills-based Kenneth J.
Dalto and Associates.
“They’re doing the research on why are
they moving to Northville instead of Westland,” Dalto said. “It’s a matter of disposable
income, where you know there are two-income families in many cases, even with
kids; they’re professional, and they enjoy
that lifestyle.”
The national trend toward healthy eating
— Stern said the growth of the natural foods
and organic market has tripled the growth
rate of the conventional market — means
high-end groceries can be profitable.
According to a 2007 paper published by
Michigan State University’s Product Center, the
organic food trade doubled between 2000 and
2006, reaching $13.8 billion.
Westborn’s Anusbigian reports that last
year’s profits were up 34 percent from the
previous year. Violante said Holiday’s revenues have remained flat, and Nino Salvaggio
International Marketplace President Kirk Taylor said his stores’ performances are up
“nicely.”
Conventional grocers have a profit margin of 1 percent to 2 percent, Dalto said,
while a gourmet market’s is closer to 3 percent or 4 percent.
The newest Nino Salvaggio — the chain
opened four years ago in Clinton Township,
Taylor said — will be joining stores in St.
Clair Shores, Troy and Farmington Hills.
The company’s not eyeing expansion but
is planning to replace its Farmington Hills
store with a larger market, for roughly $10
million, Taylor said. The Farmington Hills
facility is the only property in the chain not
company-owned.
Independent grocers should be wary of
overextension, Stern cautioned.
“The huge ‘watch out’ for these guys is
when you’re a small company and a small
chain and you only have one or two stores, it
only takes one to kill you,” he said.
The most common mistake, he said, is location. “If you just don’t pick right location
with right demographic … we are talking
about a customer base that’s not everywhere,” Stern said.
But almost as crucial is a market’s talent
pool, he said. It’s the wine manager who
knows what he’s doing, the butcher with
years in the trade, the cheese manager who
can steer a clueless customer toward the
perfect selection.
“The degree of expertise you need from
people is difficult,” Stern said. “Typically
they have been around for a long time, have
been in the family for a long time, and are
unique assets of what makes these stores
work.”
At Holiday, Violante is quick to point out
his staff’s experience. A typical manager, he
said, has been in the business for about 20
years, much of that with Holiday.
It’s all part of building the experience
high-end grocery customers crave.
More than extra-virgin olive oil, fresh
cilantro and house-made sushi, a gourmet
market offers an experience absent from the
typical retail chain.
“What our stores have is soul,” said Westborn’s Anusbigian. “When you walk in,
there’s an essence that’s going on. They just
have soul.”
Nancy
Kaffer:
(313)
446-0412,
[email protected]
3/21/2008
3:48 PM
Page 1
March 24, 2008
Creatives: Grant awarded for planning
■ From Page 1
“If you went to St. Paul or Duluth
or San Jose or Boulder or Miami,
where Knight works, I don’t think
there would be the same receptiveness to design that there is in Detroit,” he said.
“I am fascinated by Detroit, by
the possibilities in place and the
talent that’s there,” Ibargüen said.
“Detroit has an unusual asset that
very, very few other cities have.”
Pulled together by Knight’s Detroit program director Brenda
Price, Design Detroit includes the
Arts League of Michigan; the College
for Creative Studies; Cranbrook Academy of Art; Detroit Economic Growth
Corp.; Detroit Renaissance; Howard
Sims, chairman of SDG Associates
L.L.C. in Detroit; and the Lawrence
Technological University and University of Michigan schools of architecture and design.
The consortium has hired Reese
Fayde, former CEO of Living Cities
in New York, as a consultant to lead
development of a strategy.
As head of the consortium of
some of the largest foundations and
financial institutions in the U.S. for
five years, Fayde led efforts to revitalize urban communities by fund-
ing affordable housing, healthy environments and economic development initiatives.
Design Detroit plans to host a free
public forum April 8 at the Max M.
Fisher Music Center, where experts
from around the country will discuss what’s worked to attract creative professionals and what hasn’t.
“Our goal is in the next 60 days or
so to have an implementation plan
to attract and retain creative professionals in Detroit,” said Oliver
Ragsdale, president of the Arts
League of Michigan, which is administering Design Detroit.
The consortium plans to submit
a grant proposal for a “significant”
sum to the Knight Foundation to
implement the effort over the next
three to five years, said David Gresham, director of graduate studies
at the College for Creative Studies.
“There were a lot of things out
there for the arts, but we never had
specifically anything aimed at design,” he said.
Design Detroit’s goal is “to create
a fund that would bring the best
and the brightest from around the
country, if not the world, to Detroit,” Gresham said.
Among the early ideas for enticing young designers, architects and
other creative professionals to Detroit are instructor positions at
area design schools, real opportunities to see their designs come to life
and financial stipends of $5,000 to
$10,000 in exchange for commitments to live in the city for a set
amount of time.
Design Detroit’s efforts complement the creative economy component of Detroit Renaissance’s economic development plan, Road to
Renaissance, said Vice President
Sabrina Keeley.
Where Design Detroit is intent
on attracting more creative professionals to live in the city, Detroit
Renaissance primarily is focused
on developing more creative jobs,
she said.
The creative business accelerator Detroit Renaissance is developing as part of its economic development plan last year won a federal
earmark worth nearly $278,400
from the U.S. Small Business Administration, Keeley said, and the organization is “going back for more.”
Sherri Begin: (313) 446-1694, [email protected]
Page 33
IS YOUR COMPANY
CREATIVE?
If so, Crain’s invites you to be
part of its Creative Economy
Inventory, an initative that’s part
of Detroit Renaissance’s Road
to Renaissance economic
revitalization plan. This first-ever
compilation will document local
companies
in the
following
industries:
advertising,
architecture,
art/historic
preservation,
digital
media,
design,
engineering,
film/video
production, marketing, media,
music production, public
relations, support services and
more.
The inventory will market the
region’s creative assets and will
be available on
DetroitMakeItHere.com, a new
Web site for creatives to be
launched by Crain’s this spring.
Detroit Renaissance is the
founding sponsor of the Web
site. For more information and
to fill out the survey, go to
www.crainsdetroit.com/creative.
BAE: May expand locally
WorkForce: Growing
■ From Page 3
■ From Page 3
velopment funds in the prototype
and showcased it during the Association of the U.S. Army Winter Symposium in Florida last month.
Development costs for the initial
RG33L were roughly $500,000,
Smith said, and the company is
hoping for an initial contract to
supply three vehicles — about $1.5
million — though Smith said that
price is fluid and based on the
availability of parts and materials.
“We’re leaning into the wind a
little with this proposal, because
we put our own money into it,” he
said. “But we think that’s worth it
because the need seems to be
there, even if you don’t have the
formal request for it yet.”
For their part, the U.S. Marine
Corps Systems Command is noncommittal on the project. The Marines
and Army oversee a joint program
for procurement and deployment
of MRAPs.
“(BAE) has shown this vehicle
to the Marine Corps, the MRAP
Joint Program Office and other
services. However, no decision has
been made at this time regarding
procurement,” Bill Johnson-Miles,
Systems Command corporate affairs director, said in an e-mail.
The Sterling Heights location of
BAE opened in 2003 and has grown
from 10 employees in 2004 to 73 as
of last week, said Ashley JohnBrowning, business and communications analyst for BAE Ground
Systems.
The facility handles mostly design and engineering work on
ground vehicles. Most of the initial
research work and vehicle production is done elsewhere.
Engineers at the local facility
also have been working on the
Joint Light Tactical Vehicle project and finished their first prototype last month. The Army issued
a request for proposals on the family of vehicles Feb. 5 and is expecting to receive proposals from several bidders by April 14.
Completed prototypes are not required before formal proposals
come in, but several industry bidders are ahead of schedule since
the military was previously working on a faster timetable for the
JLTV. The new family of vehicles
is proposed as a replacement for
the outmoded Humvee.
BAE has teamed up with International Military and Government L.L.C.,
an affiliate of Navistar International
Corp., for a joint proposal on the
JLTV project.
It’s unclear whether a rival proposal by General Tactical Vehicles, a
joint venture of Sterling Heightsbased General Dynamics Land Systems
and AM General L.L.C., the makers of
the Humvee, has proceeded to prototype stage yet.
General Dynamics presented a
technology demonstrator, or a predecessor to a prototype using an
existing vehicle, last October at
the U.S. Army Tacom Life Cycle Command center in Warren.
Karl Oskoian, manager of communications and public relations
with General Dynamics, would not
comment on how far the project
has advanced since then except to
say a prototype was not shown at
the AUSA symposium or other recent military trade events.
JLTV, MRAPs and virtual prototyping are all factors that will influence BAE’s expansion plans.
Andy Hove, vice president of
combat systems programs for the
company’s Ground Systems division, has said the decision on a location to expand by 150-300 jobs
would come by March 31.
Chad Halcom: (313) 446-6796,
[email protected]
vestor. In September, they had
their first meeting with Orix;
they signed an agreement in November.
“It is still fairly rare to find entrepreneurs who can take an
idea and create a company with
staying power,” said Boone, who
said one market advantage for
WorkForce is the flexibility of its
software.
“Other products out there are
not very flexible. They require
you to conform to their software.
WorkForce’s software is just the
opposite. It’s a very open architecture that makes it very easy
for clients to address complex
payment and time structures.”
A variety of large and small
competitors offer software that
competes with WorkForce’s. Other big competitors include German-based SAP AG and Californiabased Oracle Corp.
A smaller competitor is InfoTronics Inc. of Farmington Hills,
which was founded in 1979 to offer inventory-support software
and evolved into payroll and attendance software sold through
distributors. It has spun off a
separate company, Attendance on
Demand Corp., to offer Web-based
payroll management for a
monthly subscription fee.
InfoTronics President Chris
Ciapala said he tends to have larger customers than WorkForce, although there is overlap.
“WorkForce is more of a customized system,” he said. “We’re
friendly competitors. We think
highly of them. WorkForce has
an excellent reputation.”
Jim Holincheck is an analyst
for Connecticut-based Gartner
Inc., a technology research and
consulting firm, who recently began covering WorkForce.
“They offer a pretty solid solution,” he said. “They’re not the
most well-known vendor, but
they’ve had good success building a customer base. ...
“A couple of things set them
apart. Their software is less expensive, it’s reliable and it’s easy
to understand. And it’s flexible.
You can write the rules.”
Katrina Agusti is applications
development and programming
supervisor for Dearborn-based
Carhartt Inc. She said the firm has
been using WorkForce software
for nearly two years and estimated 2007 cost savings of $69,562 directly related to its use, including the elimination of two
payroll clerks, reduced printing
costs and no longer having to
purchase time cards.
Agusti said the software manages payroll functions at two
unionized distribution centers,
where complex rules regarding
pay rates for different jobs made
manual entry time-consuming.
“As an employee moves from
job to job during the course of
the day, there are different rates
of pay,” said Agusti. “We used to
have upwards of 10 to 15 paper
time cards being turned in on
one shift by one employee.”
Now, time spent on each job is
added up electronically.
Pongsakdi Cady, principal information technology analyst for
the Orange County Sanitation District in California, said his district has been using WorkForce
Web-based software for 18
months. Cady said projections
are for labor savings over three
years to pay the $250,000 cost of
the software and support. “We’re
very pleased with it.”
Tom Henderson: (313) 446-0337,
[email protected]
www.crainsdetroit.com
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3/21/2008
5:58 PM
Page 34
D
March 24, 2008
RUMBLINGS
Freep: No more
embarrassing
text messages
espite persistent rumors to the contrary,
Detroit Free Press
Publisher David Hunke said
there are no more bombshells lurking in the 14,000
text messages the
paper has
in its possession.
The text
messages
were the
basis for
the newspaper’s
Hunke
January report that Detroit
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and
former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty were apparently
having an affair and may
also have lied under oath in
the whistle-blower case that
led to an $8.4 million taxpayer-funded settlement.
Since then, there have
been rumors that text messages not published contain
messages belittling Roger
Penkse, among other business leaders, as well as members of his staff, the City
Council and local ministers.
Hunke told Crain’s that
while he has heard the rumors, there is nothing in the
text messages the paper has
in its possession to support
them, and that the paper has
no more bombs to drop
based on its horde of
unpublished messages.
“We could release
and publish more text
messages in the context of
Page 1
events as they unfold, but no
one should take that as an
ominous note,” he said. “We
are not sitting on highly inflammable texts that are the
subject of these rumors. As
far as any … controversial
text messages, we don’t have
any. There really isn’t anything else that’s going to be
coming out from us.”
Get a Detroit fashion fix
If you didn’t make
it to Bryant Park
for New York
Fashion Week,
don’t worry.
There’s an
event closer
to home that
can satisfy
your sartorial
cravings.
Detroit Fashion Week
(www.detroitfashionweek.com) is in
its fourth year, said organizer and fashion
photographer-artist Brian
Heath.
The show, Heath
WEEK IN REVIEW
FROM WWW.CRAINSDETROIT.COM, WEEK OF MARCH 15-21
said, highlights Motor City
style — of which there’s
plenty. This year, local designers include Beulah
Cooley, Jill Robertson, Femilia
and Angela McBride. Top
sponsors include Azenza Salon, Birmingham; Purely Pro
Cosmetics, Bingham Farms;
International Academy of Design & Technology; Fashion
Group International; Fitness Together; The Art Institute, Novi.
Fashion Week kicks off
Tuesday with a party at
Ferndale hipster haven The
Bosco. Runway shows are
March 28 and 29 at Asian Village of Detroit, 521 Atwater
St. Crain’s also will publish
an April 21 report on Detroit’s fashion industry.
BITS & PIECES
Palace Sports & Entertainment and the Detroit Pistons
raised more than $480,000
during the Pistons Cares
Telethon March 14 to
benefit Make-AWish of Michigan.
Ferndale designers
Fotoula Lambros
and Emily
Thornhill offered
this dress at
last year’s
fashion
shows.
DALE CLARK
Judge orders
release of
some text
messages
ayne County Circuit
Court Judge Robert
Colombo Jr. said Friday the portions of text messages left on Christine Beatty’s
city-issued pager in 2002 and
2003 and any referring to the
firing of former Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown should
be released, the Associated
Press reported.
City attorneys will have
an opportunity to argue
why the messages should
not be made public.
Colombo also ordered
lawyers for the city and
whistle-blowers’ attorney
Michael Stefani to give the
court a copy of a never-produced motion justifying Stefani’s fees in that trial and
ruled the Detroit City Council
may intervene in a Freedom
of Information Act suit
brought by the newspapers
as part of an effort to obtain
the text messages.
Also, U.S. District Judge
Gerald Rosen on Friday chose
two magistrates to review
text messages sought by attorney Norman Yatooma, who
is representing the son of
slain exotic dancer Tamara
Greene, The Detroit News reported. Greene’s name was
linked to a long-rumored
2002 party at the Manoogian
Mansion.
Also, Detroit Corporation
Counsel John Johnson, the
city’s top lawyer, and Patricia Peoples, who is listed in
city records as deputy director of human resources and
is Kilpatrick’s cousin, are
facing possible contempt of
court charges for not cooperating with the Wayne County Prosecutor’s criminal investigation of Kilpatrick and
Beatty, the Detroit Free Press
reported.
W
Learn from business leaders, cookie sellers
ON THE MOVE
Crain’s M&A Awards were handed out
profiles the efforts of robotics firm
recently, with the Lifetime
Jadi Inc. The company’s CEO, Jerry
Achievement honor bestowed upon
Atkinson, credits the Oakland
Walter “Bud” Aspatore, chairman of
University Incubator with helping it get
Amherst Partners L.L.C.
started and suggests more startups
should consider the Defense
At our Web site this week, you can
Department as a source of funding.
watch a special Crain’s video shown
You can find all of our videos at
at the awards ceremony featuring
www.crainsdetroit.com/multimedia.
Aspatore, business partner Scott
Eisenberg and attorney Steven
New photos from the charity circuit
Hilfinger, who nominated Aspatore for
will be posted Tuesday at
the award.
www.crainsdetroit.com/givers.
WEB WORLD
Columnist Julie Yolles writes about the
The self-effacing Aspatore won the
Kevin Hill
recent Girl Scouts Cookie Gala at the
award for a 40-year career involved in
Roostertail. Yolles even had a hand in
M&A transactions in the Midwest. He has
the action this time, serving as a judge in the
supervised 100 investment banking and finance
contest between eight local restaurants to make
transactions totaling more than $2 billion.
the best Girl Scout Cookie dessert.
“If this is like the Academy Awards, once you
The March edition of Crainstorm, our eget the lifetime achievement award, there’s
newsletter for marketers, will hit e-mail
not a whole lot to look forward to,” he quips in
inboxes this week. You can always view the
the video.
latest issue at www.crainsdetroit.com/
Also at www.crainsdetroit.com this week:
crainstorm or sign up for e-mails at
www.crainsdetroit.com/getemail.
A new Crain’s Small Talk video series
Janice Stroh, vice president for business and finance for Eastern Michigan
University, has been placed on
paid administrative leave,
the Associated Press said.
James Croce, CEO of Detroit nonprofit NextEnergy,
plans to step down and strike
out on his own in the alternative- and renewable-energy industry but will stay for
six months so the board can
select his replacement.
Stephen Morrey to CEO,
JAC Products Inc., Pontiac,
from CEO, Dayton Superior
Corp., Dayton, Ohio.
Michael DeVos, director
of the Michigan State Housing
Development Authority, re-
signed March 14, the Associated Press reported.
SUPPLIERS
Lear Corp. Chairman
and CEO Bob Rossiter received a 31 percent pay increase in 2007, giving him
annual compensation of
$6.1 million, not including
his stock options and pension value, according to a
filing with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. Vice
Chairman James Vandenberghe received an increase
of $3.9 million. His $1.3 million bonus nearly tripled
the $462,500 he got in 2006.
Questor Management Co.
L.L.C. announced the sale of
AZ Automotive Corp. in Warren to AIG Global Investment
Corp. and Orix Finance Corp.
Dura Automotive Systems Inc. said it expects its
senior note-holders to recover about 19 percent on
their claims, down from the
55 percent promised earlier, Dow Jones Newswire reported. Most unsecured
creditors, who were counting on a 22 percent recovery, can now expect only 8
cents on the dollar.
Delphi Corp. won court
approval to extend an executive bonus program that
could pay as much as $39.1
million to hundreds of executives in the U.S., the Associated Press reported. Delphi also won court approval
to sell its wheel bearings
business to Kyklos Inc. for
$46.2 million.
Strike-bound American
Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. has moved some of
its parts production for
Chrysler L.L.C. from the United States to Mexico, Automotive News reported.
A bankruptcy judge
ruled that Federal-Mogul
Corp. insurers may have to
pay more than $500 million
for asbestos damages under
the Chapter 11 plan that got
the company out of bankruptcy last year, the Associated Press reported.
Noble International Ltd.
on Thursday completed a
$50 million convertible debt
financing deal with steelmaker ArcelorMittal S.A.
OTHER NEWS
Penske Corp. Chairman
Roger Penske, who heads
the Downtown Detroit Partnership, on Monday said Detroit
Renaissance Inc. is providing the DDP with a threeyear $750,000 grant to promote the downtown area.
The state Senate adjourned Thursday without
taking up legislation that
would have set up a new
Democratic presidential
primary June 3, making the
election unlikely, the Associated Press reported.
The Detroit Brownfield
Redevelopment Authority on
Tuesday gave Bettis/Betters
Development L.L.C. of Pittsburgh a three-year extension for cleanup on the old
Uniroyal plant site west of
the Belle Isle Bridge.
AT&T Inc. announced
plans to spend $46 million
this year on its Michigan
wireless network, including capacity and coverage
improvements locally.
Dunkin’ Donuts plans to
open more than 100 restaurants in the Detroit, Flint
and Lansing areas over the
next several years, the Associated Press reported.
The closure of a SuperValu Inc. plant in Livonia
will put 366 employees out
of work, according to a filing with the Department of
Labor and Economic Growth.
Fox Sports Net Detroit has
signed 10-year deals for all
local broadcast rights for the
Detroit Tigers, Pistons and Red
Wings. Some nationally televised games will still be
available over the air.
The Wayne County Airport Authority board delayed
until May 22 a vote on a $3.6
billion, 20-year master improvement plan for Detroit
Metropolitan Airport.
The Michigan Office of
Racing Commissioner awarded a track license to the
owner of Post It Stables Inc.,
which is building the $142
million Pinnacle Race Course
scheduled to open in July
near the airport.
Trading of Handleman
Co.’s stock on the New York
Stock Exchange (HDL) will
be suspended Tuesday
pending delisting, according to a statement. The
company is preparing to
trade on the Pink Sheet
Electronic Quotation Service.
Papa Romano’s Enterprises Inc. announced Friday it would acquire majority control of Stanford L.L.C.
Ltd., the licensing company
for Saline-based ice cream
maker Stucchi’s.
The city of Pontiac has
resumed negotiations with
H. Wallace Parker, who is
now offering $21 million to
buy the Silverdome, The
Detroit News reported.
Parker had earlier offered
$12 million and said he
wanted to open a horse racing track and casino there.
OBITUARIES
Terrance Boyle, former
Recorder’s Court judge and
husband of retired Michigan
Supreme Court Justice Patricia Boyle, died of complications of prostate cancer
March 17. He was 69.
Kenneth Logan, 101,
founder of Logan, Huchla &
Wycoff P.C., Riverview, died
of natural causes March 10.
Christopher Patsalis, former owner of Redford
Township-based Kitchen
Glamor, died of colon cancer
March 17. He was 77.
DBpageAD 2.qxd
2/25/2008
11:09 AM
Page 1
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Page 1
Ewa Matuszewski
CEO
Medical Network One, Rochester
Healthy Blue LivingSM is creating healthier
workplaces all over Michigan.
When it launched back in 2006, Healthy Blue Living
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“Our people are happier, I see a lot fewer empty desks, and
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Blue Care Network’s industry-leading expertise is
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What can it do for you? Ask your Blues agent or visit
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