BUSINESS DIGEST ||

Contributing extruder

YOUNGSTOWN

Youngstown Business Incubator portfolio company Strangpresse LLC, a custom thermoplastic extruder manufacturer for the additive manufacturing industry, will contribute an extruder to the department of mechanical engineering in Baylor University’s School of Engineering and Computer Science in Waco, Texas. Baylor is a private Christian university and a nationally ranked research institution.

The extruder will be used in research labs to study large-scale polymer deposition in the fused deposition modeling additive manufacturing process.

Monus Fellows at YBI

YOUNGSTOWN

The Youngstown Business Incubator announced Thursday it will partner with Youngstown State University’s Williamson College of Business Administration to welcome two inaugural Monus Fellows to the YBI campus. Dominika Lackova and Corey Patrick, both business students from WCBA, have been selected as the first Monus Fellows for the 2016 summer and fall semesters.

The Monus Fellows program provides business students interested in entrepreneurship with real-life opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills by working with local entrepreneurs on their ventures.

Each fellow is assigned to one or two YBI portfolio companies during the fellowship, to complete projects such as market research, preparation of financial statements and projections, project management, marketing and sales forecasting.

Eagle Rental expands

NILES

Eagle Rental Purchase, a locally owned company of rent-to-own furniture stores, is expanding its business with the opening of its newest location in the city.

The new location is at 5580 Youngstown-Warren Road, on U.S. Route 422 across the street from Eastwood Mall Complex. A ribbon-cutting ceremony will take place at 10:30 a.m. July 25.

Eagle has 10 other locations serving Akron, Boardman, Brookpark, Calcutta, Canton, Cleveland and North Randall.

Talmer merger OK’d

TROY, MICH.

Talmer Bancorp Inc., the holding company for Talmer Bank and Trust, announced that shareholders have approved the merger of Talmer, and Chemical Financial Corp., the holding company for Chemical Bank, with more than 99 percent of Talmer shares cast at the meeting voting in favor of the merger. The merger will make Chemical Bank the largest bank headquartered in Michigan.

The merger remains subject to Chemical shareholder approval and final regulatory approvals. Chemical’s shareholder meeting to vote on the merger is scheduled Tuesday.

The merger is valued at nearly $1.4 billion, up from $1.1 billion at the time of the announcement in January. Talmer shareholders will receive 0.4725 shares of Chemical common stock and $1.61 per share in cash. The value of the transaction will fluctuate based on Chemical’s stock price between now and the time of the closing.

Staff/wire reports

Selected local stocks

STOCK, DIVIDENDCLOSECHANGE

Alcoa Inc., .1210.710.00

Aqua America, .71 34.00-0.10

Avalon Holdings,2.71-0.018

Cortland Bancorp, .2815.100.10

Farmers Nat., .168.910.05

First Energy, 1.44 35.85-0.59

Fifth/Third, .5218.440.50

FirstMerit Corp., .6820.780.26

First Niles Financial, .129.000.00

FNB Corp., .4813.240.24

General Motors, 1.5230.760.13

General Electric, .9232.630.27

Huntington Bank, .28 9.230.15

iHeartMedia Inc.,1.270.06

JP Morgan Chase, 1.9264.120.96

Key Corp, .3411.780.22

LaFarge, .3417.570.00

Macy’s, 1.51 34.83-0.25

Parker Hannifin, 2.52 113.820.74

PNC, 2.0482.861.31

Simon Prop. Grp., 6.40222.17-2.07

Stoneridge 15.690.24

Talmer Bank, .20 19.940.21

United Comm. Fin., .10 6.13-0.02

Selected prices from Thursday’s 4 p.m. close.