The Good News Report

[CLTProductions]

2 minutes ago, kermit said:

^ When I read the phrase "operations center" I think University "Research" Park, Arrowwood or Fort Mill.

Yeah this will likely wind up in UC or Bally if it comes to CLT at all

[CLT2014]

PayPal's Silicon Valley HQ and Omaha, NE operations center are both extremely suburban. The surface parking lot is enormous in Omaha. I'd be surprised if they picked an Uptown location with a higher price per square foot over a suburban location for a campus that will include call center jobs. Plus in a suburban location they will provide the closed in amenities some tech companies love like basketball courts and a cafetetia.

[asthasr]

One interesting thing is that, if they open an operations center, that might also put us in the running for a data center in the foothills; we already have several. (Facebook in Forest City, Google in Lenoir, Apple in Maiden.)

[HopHead]

If Paypal were to put an operations in the Charlotte area, you can almost guarantee it would be in Ballantyne. I'd be shocked if it were uptown. 

[cltbwimob]

TBH, I am hoping for something a little more exciting in the downtown office tower developments (I.e. Something of the caliber of a BMW) than a back office operations center.  If this was PayPal's HQ, then put it as close to Trade and Tryon as possible.  However since it is an operations center, one of the sprawling office parks around town will be fine.

[dcharlotte]

I have a feeling this will go to the University Area followed by moving into the space formerly occupied by Bank of America in Ballantyne. Next I could see them taking some space in the airport submarket (old Coliseum area). Uptown would be my last guess.

[Crown]

I think they've taken a look at Innovation and the Allstate buildilng. 

[cltbwimob]

It was just announced today that the parent of Capital Bank would be purchasing Charlotte-based CommunityOne.  For those who don't know Capital is the current incarnation of NAFH which was started by two former BoA bankers.  Those bankers are currently based in Charlotte although Capital's HQ is officially in Florida.

The CO had an article today about the merger which alluded to the uncertainty of the HQ location of the merged entity.  While it may be too early to speculate, I think Charlotte has a good chance of landing the HQ because the founders of the bank still live in the city, and they will finally have a significant presence in Charlotte.  I always suspected the reason their HQ location was elsewhere was because none of the banks they had purchased had a significant presence in Charlotte, but with this merger they certainly will have a much larger presence in the area.

If the HQ does land here, then Charlotte will have a new bank with about $10 billion in assets.

 

[DEnd]

5 hours ago, cltbwimob said:

I always suspected the reason their HQ location was elsewhere was because none of the banks they had purchased had a significant presence in Charlotte, but with this merger they certainly will have a much larger presence in the area.

If the HQ does land here, then Charlotte will have a new bank with about $10 billion in assets.

 

Nah it was probably for tax reasons, that and the board could work in a vacation around their meetings.  The tax advantage is now in NC's favor, but I have a feeling that their relationship with their regulators will play just as big a role in a possible HQ relocation.  Since they operate their banks independently, a HQ relocation to Charlotte wouldn't mean a corporate presence like Wells or BAC has.  It would be more like Nucor or Berkshire Hathaway. 

[CLT2014]

GE has called off the sale of GE Appliances to Electrolux due to the hurdles from the DOJ lawsuit. GE has requested the $175 milliom breakup fee if the deal fell through from Electrolux.

 

Shares in Electrolux are down 12% and the company plans to find another aquisition. No word if they will expand their US headquarters in Charlotte as a result of the termination of the acquisition or any impact to CLT jobs.

[tozmervo]

I'm almost certain that their building expansion was already under construction anticipating this deal. That's going to be hugely costly if they can't buy up someone else to fill that space.

[cltbwimob]

1 hour ago, tozmervo said:

I'm almost certain that their building expansion was already under construction anticipating this deal. That's going to be hugely costly if they can't buy up someone else to fill that space.

I don't think so. While I am sure Electrolux was already at least in talks with GE when they announced the Charlotte expansion,  I believe the expansion was announced nine months prior to the announcement of the GE deal.  And when they did announce the GE deal, they put the expansion on hold.  I believe that if the Electrolux Charlotte expansion was announced with the expectation of a GE merger, I don't think they would have been so non-committal about following through with it while the merger was in the works.

I am actually somewhat relieved by the fact they dropped the merger because I  feared that Charlotte would end up being the losers in a GE-Electrolux combination.  If I am not mistaken, much of the expansion announced in December 2013 was supposed to be R&D functions.  Since GE already has a massive campus in Louisville with R&D already in place, I figured that the R&D functions would revert to Louisville, and the massive Electrolux expansion in UCity that was announced prior to the GE deal would never come to fruition.  I surmised that was why the expansion was put on hold in the first place.  Maybe I am wrong about this, but that is the way I remember the events, and I am too lazy to go back and research it. 

At any rate, I hope Electrolux now completes their expansion at UCity.

[kermit]

Decent score for Charlotte. Corning Fiber is moving its HQ here, 650 jobs. Building location not yet disclosed, since they are moving from HIckory I have a feeling they will be in the Northern part of Mecklenburg.  Potentially a nice companion to the energy cluster.

http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/outside_the_loop/2015/12/corning-optical-to-build-650-job-headquarters-in.html?ana=e_clt_bn_breakingnews&u=jDmEk%2BCKbYnAvaVfOFOlFGXcGSC&t=1449600454

 

Edited December 8, 2015 by kermit

[CarolinaCrown]

On 10/27/2015 at 5:20 PM, cltbwimob said:

http://m.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/outside_the_loop/2015/10/9-years-later-plastics-company-plans-100m-plant-in.html

300 jobs, $100 million invested in Chester County..not too shabby for our neighbor two counties South.  Seems like Chester is getting a lot of new manufacturers these days.

I love the fact that they are manufacturing jobs too.  The Charlotte area needs more production jobs.

Has anyone heard or have some more info on this development: http://www.heraldonline.com/news/business/article50476405.html#storylink=latest_side

It'd be great if this come to fruition/

 

[cltbwimob]

^^^Nice.  It's always cool to get a large manufacturing announcement.  Makes me happy to see that America is regaining some of her former production prowess, plus in areas like Charlotte where income inequality is a significant issue, getting thousands of middle class jobs is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to combat income inequality.  Helps balance a relatively white-collar heavy workforce.

[cltbwimob]

On 12/18/2015 at 3:25 PM, CarolinaCrown said:

Has anyone heard or have some more info on this development: http://www.heraldonline.com/news/business/article50476405.html#storylink=latest_side

It'd be great if this come to fruition/

 

http://www.heraldonline.com/news/business/article52068215.html

Mystery project has been approved.  Official announcement expected in February or March.

Given what we know about this project, I am wondering if Dupont or one of the mega oil companies such as Chevron is behind it.  Seems like they have interest in developing these fuels, and the $1.6 billion dollar price seems to imply that this is a mega company.

 

Edited December 29, 2015 by cltbwimob

[tozmervo]

So apparently Metlife is spinning off it's successful retail segment and the new company will be headquartered here in CLT. 

http://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/MetLife+(MET)+Plans+Separation+of+U.S.+Retail+Business/11214260.html

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/12/metlife-plans-to-spin-off-its-us-life-insurance-unit-biggest-in-us.html

[Niner National]

At 20% of their revenue, this would easily be a fortune 500 company on its own.

[Norm2]

I didn't see any where in the article that stated this would be HQ here? Maybe I can't read lol.

[Silicon Dogwoods]

1 hour ago, norm21499 said:

I didn't see any where in the article that stated this would be HQ here? Maybe I can't read lol.

It said it would be hq here.

Perhaps you were just distracted.

[cltbwimob]

The HQ will be in Charlotte provided it becomes an independent company.  The news reports are very unclear in that they talk about a spinoff based in Charlotte as if it is certain, but then they also say that the company is exploring a sale of the unit as well. 

At any rate, if the spinoff occurs the company will be ~#250 on the Fortune 500 list.  What's even more awesome is that the company will be a major financial services firm. Charlotte has lost so much clout in the financial world since the recession, it will be nice to see a large financial firm come to town.  Hopefully, since the retail unit is what people think of when they think "MetLife", the new company will be the ones to keep the name and maybe-just maybe-the Snoopy Blimp will find a home in the Charlotte region as well.  Fingers crossed

[Deleted.]

4 hours ago, Silicon Dogwoods said:

It said it would be hq here.

Perhaps you were just distracted.

Where did it say that in either article? I did a word search for "Charlotte" in both articles and nothing came up. 

[11 HouseBZ]

The biz journal says it in the title that it'll be based in Charlotte. 

[HopHead]

Here's the CLT Biz Journal article that references the HQ being based here. This newly formed company would have $240B in assets. A Fortune 500 business for sure if it happens.

http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/bank_notes/2016/01/metlife-to-separate-retail-business-new-company-to.html

[RaleighHeelsfan]

I know you can only speculate but what would this mean in terms of job numbers??? New skyscraper even??? Huh huh huh???