urbanSTL

Actually, Boeing is responsible for income taxes that are apportioned to its operations in Missouri.



Every state corporate income tax law is different (and I don't recall what Missouri's laws are) but it is often based on some combination of sales, inventory, real estate, personal property, and wages that are allocated to or located in the State. There is obviously property and wages in the state, and I am certain that a certain amount of sales revenue, even if not directly brought into the state, would nonetheless be apportioned to the St. Louis operations for MO corporate income tax purposes. As such, it is very likely that the Missouri Boeing operations bring in more corporate income tax to Missouri than the Chicago headquarters.

There is another encouraging supplement to the Fortune 500 rankings that does not rely on particular geographic definitions to demonstrate St. Louis is performing particularly well relative to other US cities (or MSAs, no matter how you look at it).



Among the best 1-year total return and 5-year total return to shareholders, the St. Louis metro area contributes 2 each to the top 20. (10% of the top performers over each period.) One St. Louis company appears in the best 10-year return.



It has been exciting to watch Monsanto rapidly become the most valuable company in the St. Louis region by a wide margin. (Enterprise value of $62bn vs. $45bn for Anheuser-Busch and $44bn for Emerson.) I expect that lead to continue to expand as food safety and supply issues become increasingly important on a global basis.



1-Year Return

#11 Monsanto 114.4%

#13 Express Scripts 103.9%



5-Year Return (annualized)

#5 Monsanto 65.5%

#12 Peabody Energy 56.6%



10-Year Return (annualized)

#5 Express Scripts 34.6%

stlmizzoutiger wrote:

marc buxton wrote:
Kansas City's only F-500 company DT is H&R Block...

FYI, H&R Block is no longer a F-500 Company. H&R Block dropped from #459 in 2007 to #544 in 2008.

Electronic filing must be killing them. So this means no F500 HQ's in DT KC? Wow. This also means the KC metro only has one F500 company now (it is in Kansas, but forgot what it was. It is not Sprint or Hallmark, though).

marc buxton wrote:Electronic filing must be killing them.

Two words: Turbo Tax.

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:This is a company built on the premise that most people are stupid.

That might be the smartest possible business model in this day and age.

DeBaliviere wrote:

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:This is a company built on the premise that most people are stupid.

Possibly the smartest possible business model in this day and age.

Or really any age!

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/ ... full_list/



theoretically, could you see any company on that list moving its HQ's to St. Louis? Who are we most likely to land? Who would you want?



This is off the cuff but I'd like to see Walmart relocate. Even though I never shop there and I hate it, it is located right in Arkansas.



Given that they import a lot of junk from china and given that we could possibly become the midwest hub for china its not a completely illogical move is it?



I'm sure much more work has to be done before we can even look at anyone in the top 50 let alone walmart but its nice to dream.



We've got eight. I'd like to see at least 4 more within the next decade but I have no idea how these things work.

Maybe St. Louis doesn't even have to land another company. The mayor could appeal the Fortune 500 list like he does the census.

I'd rather work on growing existing companies, starting new ones, and keeping the ones we have. Relocations are nice, but St. Louis seems to have a knack for growing large companies and then selling them.



Probably easier to home grow than try to convince someone to move. Not to say we shouldn't try to get relocations. I am all for that.

The only one company on that list that would most likely EVER move without a buyout would be Caterpillar.



But as MattnSTL said, it is better to work with smaller/growing companies.

Archer Daniels Midland has long been rumored to be looking for a new place the move its HQ. Chicago and St Louis are the front runners. They have been tossing this around for a couple of years but I am not sure if it will ever happen.

This is part of STLs inferiority complex… we aren’t growing like Houston or Atlanta or LA so we think we need 1000 HQs to justify our position in our view of the world. Screw the HQs... I'd be happy with large new facilities with long term good paying jobs. Like Arch_Genesis said... we have more HQs than LA. I am not saying I want to be LA but SoCal is growing at a phenomenal rate, one we should be jealous/concerned at. If growth is promoted – honestly promoted and nutured – the jobs and HQs just seem to follow. I would honestly trade all the local HQs here if we could get a thriving urban core AND diverse growing metro area…



(I am not sure if anyone mentioned it but…) Maybe we should court developments like this… Illinois wouldn’t be loosing anything if built on the East Side and we have a LOT of good experienced people who could help them out who will be out of work very soon. Plus if they had plants here – they might be willing to relocate here.





Caterpillar Announces a $1 Billion Multi-Year Capacity Expansion Plan for Illinois...

PEORIA, Ill., June 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Demonstrating confidence

in its ability to compete globally from a strong U.S. manufacturing base,

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) announced today a multi-year $1 billion capacity

expansion that will position key factories in Illinois and other areas to

compete for the long term. The investments will allow Caterpillar to meet

continued demand and bolster its global leadership for machines used primarily

in mining and large infrastructure applications. In support of this capacity

expansion, the company will invest more than $1 billion from 2008 through 2010

in five existing facilities in Illinois (East Peoria, Joliet, Decatur, Aurora

and Mossville).

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRel ... RN20080612

Honestly, considering our size, 8 is plenty. I would much rather the city focus its energy on supporting/incubating smaller businesses.

I wouldn't worry too much about where F500 HQs are and where they might relocate. This list will look completely different 10 years from now. If the dollar continues to decline or even remains at its relatively low value, we will continue to see famous names disappearing from that list. If St. Louis manages to keep even half of it's current F500 HQs, we'll probably be doing pretty well compared to a lot of major cities.

Orlando Sentinel, 2006 (There are dozens of similar articles.)

The smallest businesses create the biggest number of jobs, according to an analysis of census data by the U.S. Small Business Administration.



Between 2002 and 2003 (the most recent years for which figures are available), companies with fewer than 20 employees added a combined 1.6 million jobs to the nation's work force, according to the report by the SBA's Office of Advocacy.



That's four times as many jobs as were added by slightly bigger companies: Businesses with 20-to-499 employees added a combined 400,000 jobs.



Meanwhile, the country's biggest corporations were a drain on job creation: Companies employing 500 or more had a net loss of 1 million jobs. (italics added)

Gauging your local economy by Fortune 500 companies -- or worse, pursing economic policies biased toward very large businesses -- is a fool's errand. This, not the current number of Fortune 500 companies, is why St. Louis business growth lags the rest of the country and has for decades (and likely will for decades more).

^ Exactly support small businesses, give incentives to locally owned business to expand, thats how you build your city and thats how you create a sense of community. If St. Louis made more logical moves like repealing earnings taxes, investing and public transit and infrastructure, merging the city/county making the region run more efficiently. etc. We would be in a completely different economic situation, hopefully all the young progressives don't continues to get spooked out and leave St. Louis....while bad mouthing it along the way and instead stay to rebuild their hometown.

In a bit of sad irony, St. Louis did repeal the earnings tax -- on the highest paid employees of its Fortune 500 companies. This cost the city a couple mill in revenue when Nestle took over Ralston, and it's going to cost it roughly $6 MILLION tomorrow. Meanwhile, entrepreneurial small-businesspeople still have to pay full earnings taxes on their annual bonuses (as to lawyers and accountants who work in partnerships, and just about any class of business that requires profits to be dispersed every year). And people who scrape by on $15K a year have to give the City their $150.



But not those fine public-company folks. And we've attracted tons of high-tech businesses to the City, as promised when the earnings tax was repealed about eight years ago -- haven't we?

I love when people defend the earnings tax. As if it hasn't COMPLETELY effected the city negatively.