Seattle - A fading star?
It seems Seattle’s corporate image is getting a little tarnished. First, the city lost the headquarters of the area’s largest company, Boeing. Now, another major employer is expected to start packing (eventually), as Safeco shareholders voted to sell the company to Boston-based Liberty Mutual (I voted for the sale).
No doubt Safeco will remain around for a bit, but with insurance company acquisitions, most of the “home office” operations in downtown Seattle will be absorbed by the Liberty Mutual’s East coast operations. At best, Seattle will remain a regional office. Having worked for insurance companies prior to real estate I’ve been through or have witnessed from both sides the effects of several acquisitions. It’s safe to say Seattle will lose virtually all the company’s high-paying, intelligent jobs.
I suspect Starbucks will survive its current turmoil - the loss of 180 jobs at its SODO Center headquarters and closure of 600 stores. Now we hear, courtesy of the Daily Journal of Commerce, that Starbucks is selling two of its properties in Pioneer Square, including the new office building currently under construction on First Avenue.
The city’s other major employer, WaMu, is on shaky grounds as well. There seems to be no shortage of speculation about how long WaMu can survive as an independent company. And, they’re going through significant staffing reductions, too.
Seattle has lost two of its biggest companies in Boeing and Safeco while two others are fighting for survival. It seems the city’s once bright star is dimming. And, unfortunately, selfishly for me, this gut punch to the Emerald city’s psyche may impact the region’s economic and housing recovery.
can i ask why you voted for the sale? it seems antithetical to all the stereotypical “seattle” morays: small business, local options, etc. not that safeco was really part and parcel to that mentality to any large degree, but i’m curious why you think that the sale was a good idea.
in other news, however, microsoft (not technically seattle, i guess, but certainly associated with us, even if the city proper doesn’t collect taxes directly) is doing fine. amazon is moving into new digs far more central to the city.
seattle is bearing the recession like any other major city, i think. maybe a little worse since weird kind of “mid tier” as far as cities go, so people are looking for more fertile ground in larger places, but it doesn’t seem like things are dire just yet.
My nostalgia for Safeco diminished after the 2003 layoff round, McG’s golden parachute and Paula’s pillage of the company, so my “yes” vote was about money…$68 plus change per share.
It’s about the $. Safeco’s stock was hovering around the $44 mark when they were threatened with the potential for a hostile takeover…..I don’t think Paula wanted to loose the company on her watch but the drop in financial sector stock prices put the companies value proposition way above that price (since Safeco apparently had little or no exposure to the mortgage debacle in their portfolios yet took the stock price hit along with the industry as a whole). Do the math! If they had done a hostile it might have gone to the $50-60 range vs the $68.50 offerred. What stockholders in this market would hold out against a guarenteed gain of this magnitude? I don’t think Paula Reynolds “Pillaged” anything…there were genuine tears when she announced it to the employee ranks. Who wants their legacy as a CEO to be “I lost the ship on my watch”.
The company was goner when she decided to sell the Plaza.