Investor Watch: April 01, 2024

INDIANA

A Hoosier’s 25-year trek in semiconductor manufacturing brings him back home to Indiana.

INVESTMENT PROFILE: MARYLAND

Maryland’s bid to lure global startups is hitting paydirt. Just ask executives with entrepreneurial firms coming from places such as Seoul and London.

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Projects are landing from AESC, Kuraray and Sandoz. Company leaders explain why.

Is an aging population a liability or an opportunity? Yes. “China’s elderly population presents an intriguing investment opportunity, with the silver economy currently valued at approximately 7 trillion yuan (US$982 billion), constituting about 6% of China’s total GDP,” say the experts at Dezan Shira, with forecasts projecting that figure to reach 10% by 2035. The firm will host a free webinar on the topic on April 16. Site Selection features insights from Tractus on how an aging workforce influences corporate location decision-making for manufacturing in our March issue article “Surviving the Demographic Disruption.”

Stateside, we reported on how the Louisville area was focusing on aging services in May 2010, including the move to the area of Signature HealthCARE’s HQ. The company in October 2021 broke ground for a new $22 million facility owned and financed by Sabra Health Care REIT in the Louisville-area community of Elizabethtown, one of several Signature facilities in the region in addition to its HQ. A 2017 report on top communities for successful aging from Milken Institute ranked Provo-Orem, Utah, No. 1 among large metros and Iowa City, Iowa, No. 1 among small metros.

Photo: Getty Images

Wondering whether your company’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies are effective? The UK government wondered the same thing and put together an esteemed “Inclusion at Work” panel to evaluate programs. Their report was released last week, and includes this recommended framework for success in diversity and inclusion. The No. 1 recommendation? That the UK government endorse a new framework that “sets out criteria employers might apply to their D&I practice to embed effectiveness and value for money” and that puts “evidence at the heart of their activities.” The panel further suggested that the government’s Equality Hub work with the UK Department for Business and Trade to promote these best practices.

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Photo by Orbie Pullen courtesy of Samsung

Samsung Electronics’ Device Solutions Division celebrated the grand opening of its new U.S. headquarters in San Jose, California, in September 2015, consolidating teams from across the region at the 1.1-million-sq.-ft. complex. As recounted in a January 2023 story in The Korea Herald, the 10-story structure was built in the shape of a three-layer stack of NAND flash memory chips and is home to around 1,200 employees.