Mark Sanchez: There's a lot of folks who are contract laborers in this country and many contracts have noncompete provisions in them that if you leave that position, you cannot for X period go to work for a direct competitor. They are especially used in healthcare. So, this is a rule that the Federal Trade Commission first proposed in early 2023. Received more than 26,000 comments during the public comment period there over the several months in 2023. And on Tuesday afternoon, the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 to basically ban non-compete agreements in this country. It will go into effect 90 days once the rule and it's oh, by the way, a 570-page rule. So once this gets published in the Federal Register for the federal government, it will go into effect 90 days later. So bottom line, the folks behind it at the FTC who voted to support it said it's going to end and this will help folks move from job to job, perhaps start new businesses, perhaps help push wages up and we'll see how it plays out. But if you're a person who works as a contract laborer, as a contract employee and you have a noncompete agreement, or if you're a company that uses noncompete agreements, You've got some have to start looking at those and see whether they are still enforceable once this rule goes into effect.
Patrick Center: And this is, as you mentioned, a new ruling. So, I doubt you've had time to go through the 500-plus pages for the details of why the decision was made.
Mark Sanchez: Well, there's a lot of rationale behind it. Basically, it's seen as basically a restraint of trade. It's restricting the freedom and the ability of people to move. from job to job, restricts people from starting new businesses. If they're leaving a firm, can they go start that new businesses or business, or do they have to go within, you know, certain geographic distance to start that business or certain geographic distance to take a new job that cannot compete in the same market? So, there's a lot of ramifications to this. And we should add in a couple of people I've already talked to, attorneys here in the marketplace. They expect a court challenge to this. As anytime a new administrative rule is adopted by the federal government, you see court challenges. So, they expect a court challenge to occur pretty quickly to this new mandate that's banning non-compete agreements in the country.
Patrick Center: It seems as though industries are dealing with workforce shortages. In some areas, we're seeing it at crisis levels. Michigan long-term care providers are no different. They're trying to rebuild their workforces ahead of new staffing mandates.
Mark Sanchez: This worker shortage, especially that got worse in the pandemic that started four plus years ago, really hit healthcare hard, and especially hit the long-term care industry hard in Michigan and all across the country. You're talking nursing homes, assisted living centers, and there's some data that the Healthcare Association of Michigan gave us for the story we did in Crain’s Grand Rapids last week that the staff, the industry was decimated in the pandemic and lost 16% of its workforce or about 10,000 people. So that's a crisis for that particular industry, the long-term care industry in Michigan. And it's trying to rebuild that workforce and stabilize the workforce. It has pretty much, but a couple of years ago, the association for the Industry in here in Michigan got some grant money from the state and it started an apprenticeship program to help upskill some of those workers in the industry. And that's, you know, we're only talking to a few hundred, 200 to 300 certified nurses aides that are getting certified through this apprenticeship program. But that's 200, 300 people who have higher skills and can be more productive and more effective in their job. But it's a long, long hole for that industry to crawl out of. And as this recovery comes and as it stabilizes the workforce, there's a new regulation that's been proposed, talking about regulatory mandates from the feds, that would raise staffing levels for nurses in long-term care centers. And basically, your long-term care industry is saying, we cannot fill the jobs we have now. We cannot find the talent we need now. Now the feds are going to put this mandate on us that toughens the requirements for those staffing ratios. And that's going to make the situation even worse. So, it's an ongoing debate between that aspect and kind of your consumer patient advocacy or groups who are saying you need to raise the quality, higher staffing levels, higher ratios for nurses to patients and residents leads to improved quality, improved care. So, it's an ongoing debate. It's really one of those debates about where's the proper place to put that regulatory line that any, any industry faces. But it's a particularly acute in that long-term care industry right now that's trying to recover from those job losses in the pandemic and now faces this potential mandate from the federal government on staffing that the providers say it's going to be awfully difficult if not outright impossible to meet.
Patrick Center: We're talking with Crain's Grand Rapids Business senior writer, Mark Sanchez. We have yet another banking merger and this one has a real West Michigan feel to it.
Mark Sanchez: Yeah. You know, it's been a while since this marketplace seen a lot of merger activity, the last merger effect in the marketplace was a couple of years ago when Huntington bought the old franchise that used to be Chemical Bank and was the outfit out of, out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, they merged in that, that obviously affected the industry here. But this is a local bank. This is Macatawa Bank out of Holland, based in Holland. Has 26 offices here in Kent, Ottawa, Allegan counties. It's been around 25-plus years. And in fact, was formed out of some mergers there in the late 90s. You may remember folks who've been around like me for a while, the FMB Huntington deal. And out of that deal, some of the executives there who were with FMB for a long time decided to go out and form their own bank. Macatawa Bank was one of those banks formed. And now we're seeing Macatawa has signed a deal that was announced last week. It's called Wintrust Financial Corporation out of the Chicago area. It's a $510 million deal. And it's expected to close in the second half of this year. And it's an interesting different type of transaction because Wintrust, it's been buying banks, but it kind of maintains that community bank. It owns and operates 15 separate community banks around the nation. And the Macitawa Bank would become the 16th. So, it's coming and Wintrust is about a $56 billion asset bank. The folks, executives on both sides of this equation said it was a good cultural fit for Macatawa. When I spoke last week to Richard Postma, who's the chairman of the board there, he says there's not only a good cultural fit, but there's going to be that local autonomy. Obviously, the local brand name, Macatawa Bank, will stay with the franchise. And they're pretty happy to find that partner that can take them forward. That's a large partner. Wintrust is kind of a new competitor that's going to come into the market here and it's promising to want us to really grow its presence here in the market once it completes this deal with Macatawa Bank.
Patrick Center: Crain’s Grand Rapids Senior Writer Mark Sanchez. Thank you so much.
Mark Sanchez: Thank you, Patrick.