General Electric to move headquarters to Boston

The silence was broken early this morning by the Boston Globe who released an article announcing that GE is relocating to Boston, MA. “We remain in active discussions with GE about the potential to locate other operations jobs in Rhode Island, and we are hopeful that the company’s move just up the road will improve the chances of that happening”.

Still, GE has deep roots in NY.

“None of the top executives would have had to sell their homes, but they would have been subject to double personal taxation and this may have been a factor that lowered the attractiveness of any NY site”. “It has more to do with their transformation into a digital industrial company than a short-term tax issue that was never fully implemented…”

GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said in a statement on its website that Boston will be the next location of the company’s corporate office. CT officials had hoped to avoid losing the headquarters of a major employer. Its new home will be built in Boston’s Seaport District, with the full move to be completed by 2018. He urged employees to share concerns about Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy’s “significant and retroactive tax increases”, which included a so-called unitary tax that effectively places a levy on corporations by altering how the government accounts for incomes earned outside of the state. Lawmakers responded by scaling back some increases, but still passed the second largest tax hike in state history.

But the move was seen as a blow to Connecticut’s business reputation by many at the state Capitol, reports wnyc.org via Associated Press. “In addition to adding hundreds of high-paying jobs to our state, we look forward to partnering with GE to achieve further growth across a spectrum of industries and are confident GE will flourish in the Commonwealth’s inventive economy”. The move will also bring about a shift in focus for GE, with more emphasis being placed on innovation.

Jeffrey Immelt the CEO at General Electric decided during this past summer to begin searching for a new location for the headquarters of the company.

“They are unequivocally not moving about taxes, they made it very clear to us and it is not about incentive packages either”, he said.

General Electric has chosen Boston as the next location of its corporate headquarters.

GE has been in Fairfield since 1974 where it pays $1.6 million in annual property taxes to the town of roughly 60,000, according to The Courant.

In announcing the move, General Electric pointed to the 55 colleges and universities in the Greater Boston area and underscored Massachusetts’ status as the world leader in research and development spending.

For years, GE has been at the forefront of industrial companies seeking to use sensor data and clever software to make its machines smarter, using less fuel and predicting when they need maintenance before breakdowns occur.

GE did take a lot of heat for the request, and eventually withdrew it. And the GE aircraft engine plant remains today in Lynn (though I couldn’t find any details on whether the threatened layoffs ever happened).