Navistar gets tax credit for armored-truck center

Navistar International Corp., the maker of International brand trucks, received a $2.5 million Michigan tax credit to add an engineering center in the state for its armored-truck production.

As many as 87 jobs will be added at the company, which will invest $4 million to develop the center in Madison Heights, Michigan, the state said today in a statement. Michigan's Economic Growth Authority approved the tax credit over seven years to encourage Navistar to choose suburban Detroit over locations in Indiana and Illinois.

Navistar builds and sells mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles to the U.S. military. More than 7,500 are in use now, Elissa Koc, a Navistar spokeswoman, said in an interview. The company gets about 25 percent of its $11.6 billion in annual revenue from sales to the U.S. government.

"This concentration of talented Navistar program managers and automotive and systems engineers here in Michigan is a direct result of the defense business that is conducted here," Patrick Charbonneau, Navistar's vice president for government relations, said in a statement.

Navistar now employs 47 workers at an engineering center in nearby Sterling Heights. The company hasn't decided if that location will close when the Madison Heights center opens, Koc said. Navistar makes the vehicles at facilities in Garland, Texas, and West Point, Mississippi, she said.

Warrenville-based Navistar fell 6 cents to $41.98 at 4:02 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have risen 8.6 percent this year.