It appears that Walter Energy, a $5bil. coal company, is currently searching for a location for its corporate headquarters. The company was headquartered in Tampa until June 30, 2011, when it shut down the Tampa office and moved to Birmingham, AL. But following the acquisition of a Vancouver based company (Western Coal), and hesitation on the part of the C suite to move to Birmingham, they are considering other possible locations.

From the Birmingham Business Journal Article:
Walter Energy announced in 2009 it would relocate its corporate headquarters from Tampa to Birmingham, where the majority of its mines are located. But when the company opened the office at Riverchase Galleria last year, its top executives failed to make the move.
In its 10-K annual report filed this week, the company told shareholders a move to Birmingham could harm its business, since four of its top officers – the CEO, CFO, treasurer and general counsel – declined to relocate to Birmingham.

One concern of theirs is that they won't be able to attract top talent to Birmingham (which is exemplified by the fact that their own executives aren't willing to move there). This is a great selling point for locating in St. Louis as many of the top executives in the industry are already here.

I hope St. Louis is doing something to throw its hat in the ring. It seems that it could really make a great case for itself, especially following the multibillion dollar acquisitions by Peabody and Arch Coal, and Foresight Coal moving here from Palm Beach. Just about the only thing it doesn't have going for it is direct flights to Vancouver. Then again, I imagine the top executives often travel by private charter.

^What a fantastic post, Wabash.

I do not use twitter, but everyone that does PLEASE, PLEASE!!! blow up the mayor's twitter feed about aggressively courting Walter. This would be a HUGE win for the city, and I would venture to say easily the largest corporate move INTO the area in a LONG time.

Do we have a dedicated entity responsible for pursuing business interests such as this? Does the RCGA actively recruit corporate moves?

Opportunities such as this one do not present themselves everyday. Time to open the door as wide a possible. This is seriously TAILOR MADE for the city of St. Louis. Central location, low cost of living, quickly becoming (virtually) the GLOBAL hub of the industry, and the list goes on.

I encourage EVERYONE to communicate with the city on this matter. I am drafting a letter to Slay when I finish this post.

Not to bring in budget concerns, but after running a surplus (GOOD JOB!)maybe this is an interesting investment of city capital...

newstl2020 wrote:Thanks, Count!

Reading the business Journal it sounds like the descision is going to be Vancouver, but I still think this is a GOLDEN opportunity. Surprised there is not more interest, however speculative.

Given recent consolidation and an emphasis on Asia business you wonder if we might see Walter Energy in the M&A thread in the next six to 12 months. Pure speculation on my part, but fun to think about.

I sure hope so (although I hope they choose to move to StL and remain independent first and foremost). If they were acquired, I could definitely see Peabody (or Arch...) in the market for a 30-40-ish story tower. That company would be HUGE.

It's not just office space availability, we need to market our workforce, too.

Their website doesn't show any open positions, so in this specific case it would be hard to tailor any selling of employable locals. It's an approach to consider when courting any company to relocate here. If there was some way to prove that we have a workforce that has strengths in x experience, x education, etc.

newstl2020 wrote:Reading the Business Journal it sounds like the descision is going to be Vancouver

I thought that might be the case as well, but Walter Energy's CEO, who had been CEO of the Vancouver based Western Coal resigned on July 31, 2011. There's no way of knowing, but he may have been one of the more vocal proponents of a move to Vancouver considering he was coming from there. As of July 31st, Walter Energy has an interim CEO who is American. Also, if people think the 1% city sales tax is bad, they would completely flip out at a change from U.S. to Canadian income tax rates.

Sounds like this is effectively dead.

Rumors in the markets today about Anglo American making a $120/share financed bid for WLT.

I know this is old, but for closure reasons: Walter Energy relocated to Birmingham, Alabama.

^This is where they have been located since moving from Florida, and they were already located in Birmingham at the beggining of this thread. They were/are trying to locate somewhere other than Birmingham. I do not believe a decision has been made yet.

Also, the above takeover bid turned out to be rumor (obviously).

This is from November...

http://blog.al.com/businessnews/2011/11 ... eloca.html

It is official: Birmingham is now home to another gigantic coal mining company, Walter Energy.

I'm pretty sure they're staying in Birmingham.