Connecticut Licks Its Wounds After Losing GE to Boston

On Wednesday, General Electric announced it would relocate its company headquarters from Fairfield, Connecticut to Boston. MA invest more on research and development compared to any other region in the world, and Boston attracts a technologically-fluent, diverse workforce engrossed on resolving challenges for the world.

CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt directed GE executives to search for a new corporate home in June because of tax increases that Malloy and Democrats in the legislature adopted to support a two-year, $40.5 billion budget.

The new headquarters, likely to be in the Seaport area of South Boston, is slated to employ about 800 people; the full move will be completed by 2018, the company said. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent almost 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. GE has been shifting its focus to high-tech, digital enterprises and away from finance following its sale of GE Capital, its one-time finance unit. GE will establish a “Digital Foundry” to create, incubate and develop products together with customers, startups and partners.

In 2014, GE moved its Life Sciences headquarters to Marlborough, and in 2015 GE announced its energy services start-up, Current, would also be headquartered in Boston.

The company has reportedly spent more than six months considering locations across the country, and was said to have narrowed its choice to either Boston or NY.

“GE’s departure of their headquarters to Boston is a sad and significant event for the CT economy, and we won’t be replacing those jobs anytime soon”, he said in research note to clients. “We are excited to bring our headquarters to this dynamic and creative city”.

Governor Dannel Malloy says he couldn’t compete with the location in Boston.

Long-time business leader Michael Bloomberg said that “any company that makes a decision as to where they are going to be based on the tax rate is a company that won’t be around very long”. Murray said Worcester, which is home to nine colleges and universities, in addition to others in the surrounding area, would seem poised to benefit from a jobs maker such as GE.

Mr. Malloy acknowledged the need to address one of GE’s main concerns-the state’s rising pension costs, which are expected to increase dramatically in 2032.

“I think taxes are something that the state really needs to look at and see how that impacts its residents because if businesses are leaving, there’s a lot of things that are connected”, Caitlin Pereira, of Fairfield, said.

GE has approximately 5,700 employees in CT. It plans to move employees to a temporary location in Boston starting in the summer of 2016.

Gov. Charlie Baker is calling General Electric’s decision to move its corporate headquarters to Boston a “huge win” for the state and the city. In other words, GE execs were clear that they wouldn’t stand for a tax hike, and CT just didn’t take them seriously.

“They were certainly impressed with the large number of innovation companies that we have here, the high-technology environment that we have here”, said Rick Lord, the CEO of Association Industries of MA.