Atlanta gets another Fortune 500 HQ!!! (Columbus, Duluth: loan, tech jobs, to buy)

[JefferyT]

The HQ ops are going to Duluth, while the traning center and customer service things are going to Peachtree City (which sounds like an interetsing place..a planned community where people get around in golf carts). It seems Peachtree City is fairly close in travel time to Heartsfield which makes sense if you are flying people in a lot.

So its a real plus for the Altanta area to get both operations.

The news (in Atlanta and Dayton) also reports that that NCR is building a manufacturing plant down in Columbus, employing 900, which is quite a suprise since NCR has offshored a lot of manufacturing...they havnt built a plant stateside since the 1970s. Good news for y'all!

[JoeP]

If you look at a couple of the reasons why they are moving it does make some sense (financial incentives aside). (1) Hartsfield-Jackson. Direct Atlanta to Shanghai flights. They are really trying to reach out Internationally and Atlanta is a better location for that. Businesses really need to make it easier for their customers to do business with them, and Atlanta is a direct flight from most major cities in the world. (2) Available workforce. Atlanta is one of the youngest and educated cities in America. It's a College Town. NCR can benefit from this, because young educated people nationwide want to move to Atlanta.

If the advantages were that strong, then they would have told Dayton, hey we need to a more strategic location.

As for the talent pool, I don't buy it, they already had the employees and they have 2 milliion Cincy resident less than an hour away, growing Columbus also has nearly 2 million people and is less than two hours away, Indy is not terribly far.

They moved for the money and it comes down (again) to corporate welfare and it stinks.

At least it's not as stupid as building a KIA plant for Alabama.

[IMISSNY]

Originally Posted by atlantagreg30127

This is nothing more than a cost saving measure by them.

It's good for the tax base of the City of Duluth of course, but yeah, you have to consider the fact that traffic is bad out there, and there is no "real" public transit in that area. In more recent times, some companies have shunned Atlanta locations for these reasons, so it does seem an odd pic for a larger company in terms of location.

Here's why:

As someone else said, rents/ownership are cheaper. Second, there's a HUGE number of Mexican immigrants in that area for the "filler jobs", and pay scales are much lower down here in General. They're going to save a bundle in payroll by moving here. So the City of Duluth in general will be the biggest winner simply from the taxes coming in.

I have to say I agree with you 100% this is a big cost savings for them, I also think several companies will be moving south from up north any why because for them the payroll is smaller, the bargining power for the employers in that employee's dont have any in GA or ATL for that fact. With them moving to ATL, as a company why not move to Duluth instead and continue to save and cutback on payroll and taxes.

[JoeP]

Yes NCR "saves" a lot of money when the GA gives them $60 million dollars.

That's a pricey free market business decision isn't it?

[J2rescue]

Companies leaving the Northeast & Midwest for more business friendly states is of course nothing new. I agree that it is sad for those communities they are leaving especially considering that it was founded in that community but this is the real world. The goal of any company is to be profitable and they can better achieve that in lower cost environment with direct flights to most anywhere they would need to go.

And for goodness sake it is not often that a US company announces a manufacturing plant in the US, bringing 800 jobs that didn't exist. Who cares where they rank on some list? How can this not be viewed as a positive for GA?

[Mishap]

Originally Posted by J2rescue

Companies leaving the Northeast & Midwest for more business friendly states is of course nothing new. I agree that it is sad for those communities they are leaving especially considering that it was founded in that community but this is the real world. The goal of any company is to be profitable and they can better achieve that in lower cost environment with direct flights to most anywhere they would need to go.

And for goodness sake it is not often that a US company announces a manufacturing plant in the US, bringing 800 jobs that didn't exist. Who cares where they rank on some list? How can this not be viewed as a positive for GA?

I've got nothing against the 800 jobs they're creating but they've been a net job loser for the last 20 years. Those jobs effectively are coming from Dundee, Scotland after RIF's and Waterloo, Canada which shut down. How happy would you be if Purdue bribed what's left of GM to move down? Well NCR is the GM of the tech world... increasingly irrelevant and dying slowly.

NCR isn't as able to build its ATM plants for the US in China/India b/c its simply not economical to ship a completed 1,000lb assembly around the world. It's always made sense I just think that Purdue handed them a lot of tax breaks for a company that isn't growing or going to benefit Georgia much in the long run.

NCR doesn't invest heavily in R&D, high tech or advanced manufacturing anymore. If they built a software development center staffed w/a 1,000 new software/mechanical/electrical engineers in metro Atlanta, I'd strongly applaud Purdue's actions but this was a pretty big tax giveaway to steal the other 1,200 jobs that were based in Dayton.

It may be a positive for GA in the short run but what happens when NCR loses more market share to IBM, Fujitsu, and our homegrown competitor Radiant? Do they have to hand back all their tax breaks if their furlough 500-1000 of those jobs in a year? NCR has had nearly 20 years of shrinking revenues...(core NCR and not Teradata which they sold off to appease shareholders).

In 1989, NCR was #72 on the Fortune 500 and bigger than Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, Northrop Grumman, Compaq, and Apple. The list may seem irrelevant but I'm sure Purdue wanted them for bragging rights that he negotiated a Fortune 500 to GA. Companies in healthier financial situations likely wouldn't jump ship on 125 years of history so quickly. What is to keep NCR in Georgia after they run out of their tax break? Beyond that, they haven't exactly put out a full price tag since the interview w/ Nuti mentions millions more were given from Gwinnett and Columbus. Apparently Columbus is buying the site for them and they'll just sign a lease for the place. This is a hell of a deal for NCR...we're handing them buildings, tax breaks, and tons of PR all so they'll put some jobs in our state. They don't even own any land/buildings in the state since they sold all their old manufacturing plants and offices. They have minimal ties w/ the state and will likely be shopping for a better deal from Florida, Texas, or Alabama before the ink is dry.

[J2rescue]

Every state has economic incentives to attract new business and NCR reportedly considered them as well as Mexico for the manufacturing plant before choosing to locate in Georgia.

Over the five year term of the tax incentives, the state still expects a net gain $49 million in new tax revenue. Even if NCR is ceases to exist at that point it will still have been a net economic positive for the state. Companies come and go. I can't see the future but if they cannot survive in a free market world - so be it. It makes a lot of economic sense however, that they would have a better opportunity to rebound here than in Dayton.

[noah]

Thank you for adding some common sense. This is not the first time a state has done this and if they didn't come it doesn't mean Ga has another $60 million in their pocket. Plus, remember they are bringing $150 million payroll to Ga.

Originally Posted by J2rescue

Every state has economic incentives to attract new business and NCR reportedly considered them as well as Mexico for the manufacturing plant before choosing to locate in Georgia.

Over the five year term of the tax incentives, the state still expects a net gain $49 million in new tax revenue. Even if NCR is ceases to exist at that point it will still have been a net economic positive for the state. Companies come and go. I can't see the future but if they cannot survive in a free market world - so be it.

[Mishap]

Originally Posted by noah

Thank you for adding some common sense. This is not the first time a state has done this and if they didn't come it doesn't mean Ga has another $60 million in their pocket. Plus, remember they are bringing $150 million payroll to Ga.

If GA is such a great state how come they can't even convince the CEO to make the move? He's staying put in NYC and taking the corporate jet down. What's good for NCR isn't good for him apparently. They couldn't convince him Dayton was worth moving to despite $10M/yr but Atlanta's still not good enough?

I'm proud Georgia is able to compete on a national scale when winning jobs whether w/ incentives or our strong workforce and business friendly practices but I would be far more proud if we were able to build real homegrown businesses rather than picking them off. Getting business to uproot and move around isn't beneficial in the long run for getting a stable tax base. Fostering growth through better schools, better universities, and straight innovation is the only truly sustainable way to make new jobs for Georgia.

Ask yourself how many other states have really pulled in Fortune 500 sized companies? Georgia's lost more than its gained despite all the tax incentives and our pro business stances. If anything our businesses become ripe to be acquired b/c all too often they're slower, less efficient, and ideal for takeover. Look at Scientific, Bellsouth, and GP. They were successful but obviously someone else thought they could be more successful if they bought them and dumped most of the management and a lot of workers while retaining some lower level jobs in the state. Bellsouth was well over 10X the size of NCR and we likely lost far more white collar jobs as a result of its loss than we'll ever gain from even a growing NCR.

Why does Texas have so many HQ's in its state beyond the obvious energy ones? If we increase the rate of competition between states for each others companies can we really beat them out? They're as pro-business as they come...lots of good schools in the UT system and a far more massive worker pool to get top candidates from. They also have similarly low cost of living and plenty of tax revenue to pull companies in that Georgia could only dream of. Of the F500's founded in the last 30 years, how many are in Georgia? How many are from California? Despite their massive issues w/ illegal immigration, pro consumer, environmentally friendly, tree hugging hippies, they still innovate more businesses than we could ever imagine.

[noah]

'We looked very hard at cost of living' | ajc.com

From the company:

We did a complete analysis of the lower 48 states measuring a state’s political environment, demographics, tax incentives, foreign direct investment, skilled labor, infrastructure, supply chain, airports and, of course, we looked very, very hard at the cost of living. Georgia scored among the highest-ranked states for the high availability of a skilled work force and [training]. Georgia has a thriving economy, the No. 8 lowest corporate tax rate, No. 16 in the United States for foreign direct investment, great logistics, particularly for supply chain and infrastructure. It’s home to many research centers and many Fortune 500 companies, including many of our customers in town.