MiBiz Growth Report: March 1, 2021

This is the MiBiz growth report for March 1, 2021.

M&A

  • Traverse City-based High Street Insurance Partners acquired Badge Agency Inc., a Woodbury, N.Y.-based full-service insurance agency that writes business, automobile, homeowners, life and health policies with an expertise in providing coverage for private schools, manufacturing, technology, and real estate clients. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Formed in 2018 by Detroit-based private equity firm Huron Capital Partners LLC, High Street Insurance Partners has now completed 19 acquisitions and continues to pursue add-on deals in the insurance agency market. 
  • C2Dx Inc., a Kalamazoo-based medical device company that invests in existing lines of products, has acquired the T/Pump product line from
    Kalamazoo-based
    Stryker Corp., according to a statement. The T/Pump product provides localized temperature therapy for pain relief and patient comfort. The line is C2Dx’s second acquisition from Stryker. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 
  • International food and beverage conglomerate Nestlé SA has reached an agreement to sell its regional spring water brands, purified water business and beverage delivery service in the United States and Canada for $4.3 billion to New York-based private equity firm One Rock Capital Partners. The deal will affect Nestlé’s West Michigan operations. Its Ice Mountain Spring Water division that pumps water from a well near Evart, operates a bottling facility in Stanwood and employs 280 people will be included in the portfolio of brands in the deal. One Rock is partnering on the purchase with investment firm Metropoulos & Co., which is led by billionaire and former Pabst Brewing Co. owner Charles Metropoulous.
  • Lansing-based AF Group, the parent company of Accident Fund Insurance, acquired Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based DecisionUR, a cloud-based service that automates and streamlines parts of the workers’ compensation claim review process. AF Group’s CompWest Insurance brand previously implemented DecisionUR in California, according to a statement. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 
  • A wholly owned subsidiary of Grand Rapids-based wood products manufacturer UFP Industries Inc. (Nasdaq: UFPI) signed an agreement to purchase the assets of a South Carolina-based wood treating operation. In the deal, UFP’s Barstow, Fla.-based Sunbelt Forest Products Corp. will acquire Greer, S.C.-based Spartanburg Forest Products for $17 million. The deal includes Spartanburg’s property, plants and equipment. The company has a workforce of 300 employees. Spartanburg and its affiliates operate four wood treating facilities and one manufacturing facility that are primarily concentrated in the Mid-Atlantic region, combining for $543 million in sales for 2020. The companies expect the deal to close by the end of the first quarter. 

Expansion

  • Grand Rapids-based Gordon Food Service Inc. plans to open a grocery store in a former OfficeMax store in Memphis, Tenn., according to a report in the Memphis Commercial Appeal. The company will present its plans to a local body during a March 24 meeting. The store would be the first for GFS in the city and its fifth in Tennessee. 

Manufacturing

  • Holland-based office furniture maker Trendway Corp. has added Hamilton, Ontario-based Green River Furniture and Montreal-based Major Design Furniture to its sales team as independent rep groups. Green River Furniture covers the greater Toronto region in addition to southwest and northern Ontario. The company has been around for more than two decades and primarily serves the corporate, education, health care and hospitality sectors. Major Design Furniture covers the Montreal and Ottawa markets. The two new partnerships come six months after Trendway added Alberta-based Flipside Corporate Furniture to its sales team. Trendway is a division of Illinois-based office equipment supplier Fellowes Brands.

Health care

  • Spectrum Health President and CEO Tina Freese Decker was named one of the top 25 women in health care by Modern Healthcare. Freese Decker, who became Spectrum Health’s chief executive in September 2018, was named to Modern Healthcare’s Top 25 Women Leaders in Healthcare list for the second straight year. Modern Healthcare noted that Freese Decker “mapped out innovative strategies to confront the COVID-19 pandemic, including working with local manufacturers to ramp up production of personal protective equipment,” and that she “led an effort to get targeted messages to different populations, such as interviews between physicians and Black and Latino community leaders about the health impact of COVID-19.”
  • Spectrum Health now provides cardiovascular care in South Haven. Spectrum Health cardiologist Dr. Michael Dickinson last month began office hours one day a week for cardiac care and treating advanced heart failure patients at Holland Hospital’s medical office in South Haven. Dickinson has been Spectrum Health’s medical director for heart failure programs since 2007.
  • Bronson Healthcare recently began construction on the Bronson Wound Center & Hyperbaric Medicine and Bronson Surgical Services facility on the system’s campus in South Haven. Both medical services have outgrown their space at the hospital and will move to their own facility in the fall, next door to the new Bronson South Haven Hospital that is nearing completion and should open in April. Chicago-based Matthei & Colin Associates LLC designed the $2.4 million facility and Holland-based EV Construction is handling construction. Bronson also used both firms for the new hospital. 
  • Three West Michigan family physicians — Dr. Susan Baker and Dr. Bruce Baker in Grand Rapids and Dr. Patricia Roy in Muskegon — joined the MDVIP primary care network. The addition of the three physicians in Okemos and Royal Oak grew the Boca Raton, Fla.-based MDVIP’s network footprint in Michigan to more than 30 primary care physicians.

Higher ed

  • Albion College formed a partnership with Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine to offer students an eight-year educational program. Students can receive a Bachelor of Arts from Albion College and a Doctor of Medicine from WMed with acceptance into both degree programs directly from high school. The Albion College and WMed Joint Admissions Program will admit “exceptionally qualified” high school seniors into both at the same time. The partnership also established a preferred relationship that allows all qualified Albion students to participate in the WMedStart early-decision program.

CORRECTION

A brief about Consumers Credit Union expanding to Standale that ran in the Feb. 15 print edition of MiBiz included the logo for a different financial institution by the same name.