General Electric Will Move Headquarters to Boston

GE, one of the best known companies in corporate America, is moving its headquarters from suburban Connecticut to Boston, the company announced Wednesday.

General Electric is moving its corporate headquarters to the Seaport District in Boston.

In an announcement Wednesday, GE Chairman and CEOJeff Immelt said they’re “excited to bring our headquarters to this dynamic and creative city.”

“We want to be at the center of an ecosystem that shares our aspirations. Greater Boston is home to 55 colleges and universities. Massachusetts spends more on research & development than any other region in the world, and Boston attracts a diverse, technologically-fluent workforce focused on solving challenges for the world,” Immelt said in a statement.

Several states, including New York, have been competing to lure the company from Fairfield, Conn., since GE announced in June that it was unhappy about legislative tax proposals and thinking about a move. Gov. Andrew Cuomo had met with company officials in the summer and state officials reportedly discussed the possibly of GE moving to Manhattan or Westchester County.

Connecticut’s General Assembly later passed a revised budget that scaled back some of the business-related tax increases after other companies including Aetna Inc. and the Travelers Companies Inc. criticized changes included in the state budget. But GE continued hearing pitches from other states as it said it was seeking a more business-friendly home.

The company employs about 5,700 people in Connecticut, including 800 at the Fairfield operation that has been its headquarters for four decades. It plans to move employees to a temporary location in Boston starting in the summer of 2016. The full move is expected to be completed in several steps by 2018.

Connecticut lobbied General Electric to stay put, but by early this week Gov. Dannel P. Malloy seemed resigned to GE making a change.

“I think they’re going to do what they’re going to do, that’s what I think,” he said Monday. “I think they’ve said that they’re going to leave thousands of jobs in Connecticut one way or the other, which means they’re primarily talking about headquarters operations, which would be relatively small.”

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.

“We’ve got to make the environment here more attractive. I know that that doesn’t sound real sexy, but that’s the reality,” said Joe Brennan, CEO of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association.

The company said it had been considering the composition and location of its headquarters for more than three years, and its formal review began with a list of 40 potential locations in June.

To offset the cost of the move the company said it will sell its offices in Fairfield and at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City.

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