urbanSTL

JuanHamez wrote:This is absolutely great and I'm elated. However, why is it that whenever an outside company buys a St. Louis firm, it immediately gets moved to the outside location and gets gutted locally, but when a St. Louis firm buys somebody, more often than not, they're allowed to carry on where they are?

This is kind of a rhetorical question because I suspect the answer is that many of these people would rather quit than move here. The only way we will ever solve this problem is building a better urban environment and improving our image to the outside world.

I don't think that is totally accurate.

Enterprise moved most - if not all - National and Alamo workers/jobs to St. Louis from Tulsa. Express Scripts shifted jobs to St. Louis from New Jersey after it purchased Medco. Express Scripts' gutting of New Jersey was so bad that Governor Chris Christie got involved. Charter took most of the executive jobs to Connecticut, but left a sizable office with plans for expansion. Brown Shoe gutted Madison-based Famous Footwear and moved all of those jobs to St. Louis. Wells Fargo Advisors gutted Richmond, Virginia. I could go on and on.

As I see it, the company is in charge. If the firm wanted the newly-acquired company to pack up and move to St. Louis, it would have to. The employees - especially in this economy - would do it. If not, then someone else would. People go where the jobs are.

With Monsanto's latest acquisition, The Climate Corporation, it started in Silicon Valley. It is a unique tech firm. It demands a specific skill-set that could be limited in St. Louis. Because of the tech cluster, a Silicon Valley IT engineer has many job opportunities in the Silicon Valley and could quit to work for another firm if forced to relocate. I can understand why a firm like Climate Corporation would stay in the Silicon Valley, but I could also see Monsanto requesting that a major office is opened in St. Louis. I hope they require them to do so.

arch city wrote:With Monsanto's latest acquisition, The Climate Corporation, it started in Silicon Valley. It is a unique tech firm. It demands a specific skill-set that could be limited in St. Louis. Because of the tech cluster, a Silicon Valley IT engineer has many job opportunities in the Silicon Valley and could quit to work for another firm if forced to relocate. I can understand why a firm like Climate Corporation would stay in the Silicon Valley, but I could also see Monsanto requesting that a major office is opened in St. Louis. I hope they require them to do so.

I hope so too. You guys are of course, right, that there are more dimensions to the decision to keep the jobs over there, part of which is the cluster of talent that exists in the Valley. Of course it doesn't have to happen immediately but it would be great if over the long term, those skill sets and high paying jobs could be redeveloped locally. Its not just about building the jobs either but building the whole education and urban infrastructure that can support these people and overcoming the stigma that our region has to the rest of the world.

It took several decades for North Carolina to become the financial and tech center it is today and theres no reason we can't aspire to do the same.

CKE Restaurants To Be Sold To Private Equity Firm
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/morn ... ld-to.html

CKE Restaurants is the parent company of Hardee's, which is HQ'd in Downtown. The parent company, which also operates Carl's Jr., Green Burrito, and Red Burrito, has its primary offices in Carpinteria, CA. CKE is a private company, having been acquired by P/E firm Apollo Management in 2011 before being acquired today by Roark Capital, another P/E firm.

In deals like these, P/E companies often buy private companies with the interest of managing them to maximize returns and minimize costs. As these acquried companies are considered part of the P/E firm's portfolio, they will be managed differently than the founder of the company would, meaning a harder focus on the bottom line rather than as an original idea being sought. Sometimes, a significant reorganization may follow. Then again, other companies are held as cash cows, providing steady revenues to the P/E firm going forward with minimal invasiveness into the operational management. It's way too early to tell what implications lie for Hardee's operations in STL.

I've never met anyone yet who worked for Hardee's Corporate. Does anyone know how many corp employees they actually have here?

juiceinkirkwood wrote:I've never met anyone yet who worked for Hardee's Corporate. Does anyone know how many corp employees they actually have here?

Less than 100, I believe. The parent company CKE is headquartered in California.

First big deal of 2014...

XIOLINK Acquired by Cosentry (Omaha)
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog ... entry.html

XIOLINK has been one of the largest IT hosting and data storage companies around, headquartered in Downtown. Its management has supported Downtown STL, our IT cluster, and our entrepreneurial scene for quite some time; key management will remain under the Cosentry banner. They also maintain that they believe this acquisition was more a merger than a buyout; they also maintain that this likely will be a net-positive for STL, including Downtown.

If true, the SEC will chop up this merger like fajita meat.

Before a merger, I suspect they'd have to sell off certain markets to competitors.

Could St. Louis-based Suddenlink get bigger and go more urban?

If true, is a merger between Cox (Atlanta) and Charter (Connecticut and St. Louis) on the horizon?

Or Cablevision and Cox?

Or Cablevision and Charter? A number of Charter's execs are former Cablevision execs.

Interesting.

^ apparently they are planning on shedding some areas totaling about 3 million subscribers in hopes of satisfying regulators and Biz Journal sez that Charter should be prime to pick many of those up.... and also look for a buy of a smaller company(ies). Anyway, maybe we'll see a modest number of area hirings with the industry shake up.

^I hope so.

Even though I feel 3-million is paltry. They will have to unload more than that, I think.

I think that number is likely the starting point they are "playing" with regulators.

The combined firm would have something like 34-35 million subscribers. Subtracting 3-million would still keep them well above 30-million subscribers (based on my sources).

Charter, Cox, AT&T, Verizon, Cablevision, and Suddenlink COMBINED couldn't reach that number.

I hope this bodes well for St. Louis either way.

Jerry Kent (Charter and Suddenlink) is smart and I hope he makes something happen for St. Louis.

Certara buys a Deleware-based tech consulting firm:
http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... e9fd6.html

I can't tell for sure, but it looks like this company may have recently moved from Ollivette to 210 N. Tucker.... anyone know about Certara?

^I just wish those M&A's would translate into more local jobs.

And by the way, Mallinckrodt's US headquarters in St. Louis, but the company is actually based in Dublin, Ireland.

I assume this is for tax purposes.

This company is unlikely to show up on St. Louis' Fortune list.