GAINES TWP. — Joining forces with its largest competitor will give Mobile Defenders LLC an opportunity to become part of the dominant player in the wholesale mobile device repair parts market with increased economies of scale. 

WALKER — Pallet solutions firm Kamps Inc. has kicked its dealmaking into high gear over the last month, closing on acquisitions that expand the company’s footprint into Minnesota and deepen its presence in Florida.

The Shyft Group Inc.’s Blue Arc EV Solutions brand has secured its first 2,000-unit pre-order for its new line of electric Class 3, 4 and 5 walk-in delivery vans. 

A Q&A with Matt Jung, founder of Orange Dot Ventures LLC

Construction employment in the Muskegon metropolitan area grew at the fourth fastest rate nationally from July 2021 to July of this year. 

A new West Michigan private equity firm has kicked off with a pair of deals for direct-to-consumer products companies. 

WALKER — Keller Ford Inc. has sold to a southeast Michigan dealership group. 

KALAMAZOO — After exiting from the brewery he founded in 1985, Larry Bell initially planned to create a new downtown space to house his collection of Michigan history books, jazz artifacts and historic brewery industry memorabilia. 

Successful exits from West Michigan-based craft breweries are allowing company founders and investors to put their proceeds to work in new ways that reinforce the region’s entrepreneurial culture. 

A group of mostly West Michigan investors, led by former Founders Brewing Co. Chairman John Green, has acquired Natterjack Irish Whiskey maker Gortinore Distillers & Co. after partnering with the company’s founder to avoid liquidation, MiBiz has learned. 

Anewly built flagship Subaru store that Fox Motor Group LLC opened in Cascade Township simultaneously demonstrates the latest in new dealership technology and what could become a fading part of the automotive retail industry. 

GRAND RAPIDS — Roskam Baking Co., the quietly massive operation that helped put West Michigan on the map as a center for food manufacturing, has sold to new private equity owners after nearly a century as a family owned business. 

Walstrom Marine Inc., a Harbor Springs-based yacht sales and service company and marina operator acquired last year by Continuum Ventures, has expanded into southeast Michigan with its first add-on acquisition. 

GRAND RAPIDS — Fox Motor Group LLC has expanded its holdings in southeast Michigan with the acquisition of three dealerships from Ken Garff Automotive LLC. 

ROCKFORD — Footwear and apparel company Wolverine World Wide Inc. is selling the trademarks for the Champion sneaker marketed by its Keds LLC subsidiary to HanesBrands Inc. in a move that settles an ongoing and bitter dispute between the two businesses.

BENTON HARBOR — Appliance maker Whirlpool Corp. is selling off its operations in Russia. 

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says she is unable to approve the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians’ proposed $180 million off-reservation casino project in Fruitport Township near Muskegon. 

Whether the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians will secure the necessary approval from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to open a casino in Fruitport Township remains an open question, but the answer will likely emerge within a matter of days.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer finds herself in a “particularly unworkable” situation regarding two American Indian tribes in West Michigan, Tribal Business News reports. 

After a seven-year career in tribal economic development at Waséyabek Development Co. LLC for his tribe, Jimmy TenBrink now finds himself heading up operations for a familiar tribal partner. 

WAYLAND — In his four and a half years running Gun Lake Casino, Sal Semola has been an architect of growth in helping the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians strategically expand and solidify its gaming enterprise.

When the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians sought to establish its first 8(a) certified contracting company, the tribe’s economic development arm turned to a key partner within the state of Michigan for help. 

Deidra Mitchell looks back on 2021 as a pivotal year in many ways for Waséyabek Development Co., the Grand Rapids-based investment arm of the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi.

Throughout his more than 35-year career at the helm of Bell’s Brewery Inc., Larry Bell was known for being one of the most outspoken proponents for independently owned craft breweries in the United States. 

For generations, Grand Rapids was known as the Furniture City, a nod to the area’s legacy industry that specialized in employing craftsmen to turn lumber plucked from the state’s hardwood forests into high-end furnishings. 

GRAND RAPIDS — One would be hard pressed to deny the existence of the Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians, whose ancestors were signatories of numerous agreements with the federal government, starting in 1795 with the Treaty of Greenville.

WASHINGTON — Former Bay Mills Indian Community Chairperson Bryan Newland told a Senate committee how his firsthand experience growing up on a reservation in Michigan’s eastern Upper Peninsula would shape his perspective if confirmed to lead the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

ROCKFORD — Rockford Brewing Co. LLC has unveiled plans to renovate a nearby historic building and expand with the new Malph’s Pizza Pub concept. 

The Biden administration on Thursday nominated former Bay Mills Indian Community Chairperson Bryan Newland to the top leadership position for the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. 

Growing up in the rural eastern Upper Peninsula, David Goodreau saw his father and grandfathers support their families by starting and operating small businesses.