Quote:
Originally Posted by We Got Five
The state and local government offered major tax breaks but BlackRock declined. The Mayor and the city couldn't win them over. That's a scary thought for future prospects.
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BlackRock had its lease in NJ coming up for renewal so it had to make a decision about whether and how long to renew...
and BlackRock wasn't (still isn't) their own masters. They are controlled by others, including PNC. The biggest stakeholder back then was Merrill Lynch, which had itself just been bought out by BoA. So BR's HQ move was going to have to be approved by their new bosses at BoA... and if you recall back then, the financial companies' situation was so tenuous that they all just want to stay put, hunker down, and just survive and deal with everything else later. And so even though BR fought for and got extra tax incentives from the state and the city, their move anyway got scuttled internally.
Bottomline: Philly (and PA) has a bad business climate, but it isn't that bad either. Just last week, an Illinois major manufacturer decided to move its HQ to Philly area.