Investor Watch: December 1, 2025

Return of the Son of Foxconn, Part II comes to Wisconsin. Regeneron keeps generating jobs in New York. Metal parts from Parma, Ohio, are a major component of GM’s multibillion-dollar U.S. expansion plans.

ASIA

Singapore-based Pei Wen Ng of Tractus helps decode Asia’s strategic investment pathways.

MEDICAL DEVICES

Activity at Rowan University and elsewhere in New Jersey could bring the state’s medtech ranking in line with its top rank in biomanufacturing. And a corporate vice president explains by B. Braun has chosen to expand in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

ASSOCIATION UPDATE

Looking ahead to 2026, IAMC Chair Matt Boehlke sees professional development opportunities on the horizon. Looking back at National Manufacturing Day this fall reveals a number of activities involving IAMC member organizations.

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A decade ago, Site Selection’s “What’s In a Name?” series (which in the past had surveyed the world for corporate facility investments in places named Springfield, Independence and Columbus) paid tribute to the traditionally accepted first Thanksgiving celebration in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in “Plymouths Rock,” which looked in on the approximately 40 projects that had located over the previous three years in nine places named Plymouth.

In the ensuing 10 years Site Selection’s Conway Projects Database (available by subscription) has tracked more than 120 projects in all the Plymouths, including the opening in November of a new “Resilience Factory” in Plymouth, United Kingdom, by Germany-based Helsing, Europe’s largest defense technology company. The facility, which will be Helsing’s Maritime Centre of Excellence and is receiving an investment equivalent to $425 million, is manufacturing SG-1 Fathom autonomous gliders to help allied navies hunt down enemy submarines.

“There’s no better place than Plymouth to lead in maritime autonomy,” said Maritime Helsing General Manager Amelia Gould. “With deep water, strong local supply chains and exceptional talent, we’re proud to call this city home.”

“Helsing’s investment in Plymouth shows confidence in Britain’s world-class engineering, talent and leadership in defense technology,” said UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves. “By investing in advanced manufacturing and research in the South West, Helsing is creating high-skilled jobs, strengthening our national security, and driving growth in communities that have long been at the heart of our maritime story.” — Adam Bruns

HIGHER EDUCATION

It’s hard to argue with the career, R&D and thought leadership of Great Lakes higher education institutions, providing brainpower and innovation to fuel the fortunes of competitive employers and startups alike.

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The Tax Foundation’s Vice President of State Projects Jared Walczak in November published analysis of efforts by some states to decouple from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s (OBBBA) business expensing provisions to preserve corporate income tax revenue. “Decoupling from first-year expensing for research and experimentation expenditures means abandoning a policy universally included in state corporate income tax codes from 1954 to 2022 and undermining states’ efforts to promote research and development,” he writes. “As lawmakers in some states consider decoupling from the pro-growth business expensing provisions of the reconciliation act due to concerns about corporate income tax base erosion, it is valuable to recognize just how much larger that corporate tax base has become over the past decade, and what proportion of the costs of conformity are frontloaded, with far lower costs in subsequent years.”

Photo by MC Zumalacarregui courtesy of LIT Lighting Design Awards

Among the winners of LIT Lighting Design Awards announced at a ceremony in Baar, Switzerland, in November were Noemi Barbero and Victor Barbero of VBNB Lighting for their work at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Deir el-Bahari, Egypt, honoring Egypt’s only female pharaoh. Developed between 2017-2025 with archaeologists, the project was inaugurated in September by King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain alongside Egyptian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Sherif Fathy. To preserve the monument, the designers said, “600 bespoke Aswan sandstone bases — hand-sculpted by Egyptian artisans — anchor fixtures by gravity, avoiding drilling into ancient floors.”

“At Deir el-Bahari, where cliffs guard the Valley of the Kings, Queen-Pharaoh Hatshepsut and her architect Senenmut built a temple proclaiming her divine ascent,” the designers wrote in their description of the project carried out for the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt. “The lighting design retraces that procession from earth to eternity — ramps as luminous ascents, terraces as monumental stages, statues as living presences, sanctuaries as sacred stillness.”