I'm a reporter at Crain's Detroit Business, covering automotive suppliers, higher education, Detroit Public Schools, Washtenaw and Livingston counties and the steel industry. I live in Livonia with a wife and a dog.
 05/02/12 Crain's has learned that Ford Motor Co. is orchestrating a deal to create one of Southeast Michigan's largest minority-owned suppliers as part of selling its Saline interiors plant.
An unidentified source said Ford required Faurecia North America to create a minority-owned supplier joint venture in exchange for a nearly $1 billion book of business at the Saline plant.
The joint venture, Detroit Manufacturing Systems LLC, was created with Wayne- ...more »
04/30/12 Faurecia North America is the minority stakeholder in Rush Group's joint venture, Detroit Manufacturing Systems LLC.
The two were able to strike a deal after the North American arm of the French supplier closed its union negotiations in Saline, an unnamed source says. Faurecia has been negotiating to acquire the former Ford/Visteon plant in Saline from Automotive Components Holdings since August.
This ...more »
04/17/12 As this is being typed, hundreds of representatives from the auto industry are meeting in Troy to find alternative sources of resin ahead of a shortage.
The group is meeting to triage a potential disaster for the industry in a decade full of disasters — economic meltdown, Japan earthquake/tsunami, Thailand floods, etc. The shortage of a resin known as PA-12 — used to make fuel tanks, brake components and seat fabrics — stems from a March 31 explosion at Germany-based Evonik Industries AG that killed two ...more »
04/17/12 Visteon Corp. announced today that it has sold its Van Buren Township headquarters to the New York real estate firm Sovereign Partners LLC for $81.1 million.
Visteon also signed a 15-year lease for the 527,000 square feet in the Grace Lake Corporate Center that it currently occupies.
Under the agreement, Sovereign Partners will manage the 287-acre property with 880,000 square feet of office space.
Crain's ...more »
 03/16/12 In this week's issue of Crain's, I reported on the economic case for onshoring — or bringing manufacturing capabilities back the U.S.
Total cost models of the supply chain and rising labor costs in emerging markets make onshoring viable, not just some cherry pie-in-the-sky nationalistic ideal.
But, what of all the strained capacity ...more »
 03/09/12 I've never driven a BMW 550i. I've certainly never driven a BMW 550i directly at a pylon at 45 mph. It's unnatural. But this is exactly how I spent two days last week in Michigan's scenic Upper Peninsula.
I flew up to Sault Ste Marie on March 1 as part of a Ride-and-Drive event at Auburn Hills-based Continental Automotive's Brimley Development Center, an isolated 540-acre winter test facility in Brimley, 20 miles west of the International Bridge.
Conti paid for myself and a small cadre of ...more »
03/07/12 Can social entrepreneurship, paired with social media, rebuild Detroit?
A panel of local social entrepreneurs at today's Idea Conference: Detroit want metro Detroit to forget its past and bridge the gaps toward its future — using social media to create social entrepreneurship.
Crain's Detroit Business and Advertising Age held the conference to highlight ideas on revitalizing the city.
The first step in the revitalization effort ...more »
02/13/12 Revstone Industries LLC, a collection of discarded auto supplier divisions put together by industrialist George Hofmeister, eluded near collapse this week after it closed on new financing.
Icon Investments provided Southfield-based Revstone's transportation division roughly $37.5 million in financing, a source close to the matter confirmed.
Revstone CEO Kevin Cramton said in a statement, "This financing package stabilizes our businesses and gives us the resources to launch new ...more »
12/27/11 The stage is set for Visteon Corp. to ship its electronics business over the Great Wall and expand its role in Korea.
Visteon's transformation from a Ford parts supplier to a predominantly Asian company is now in full motion.
Over the past two years, the supplier eeked out of Chapter 11, narrowly avoided a proxy battle with a hedge fund investor, surrendered two seats on its board and is now in the process of radically reshaping its business. ...more »
12/21/11 Yesterday, the Crain's staff sat down with Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Roy Roberts and the new Chancellor of Michigan's Education Achievement System John Covington — responsible for turning around Michigan's worst-performing schools.
Robert didn't shy away from DPS' long history of problems.
"We can put blame on the state, the district, the unions, but the largest blame is on leadership," he said. "We're dealing with 40 to 50 years of ...more »
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