Metlife to North Carolina

[iamjacobm]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-m ... 2131.story

Insurance giant Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. said Thursday it will move 2,600 jobs from offices in five eastern states and California to lower-cost locations in two North Carolina cities, while also getting tax breaks and other incentives that could reach $100 million.

The insurer is shifting the jobs from Aliso Viejo and Irvine in California, and from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Rhode Island, MetLife spokesman John Calagna said. The positions will be consolidated in Charlotte, which will become the U.S. headquarters for MetLife's retail business, and at a global technology and operations hub in the Raleigh suburb of Cary. The company's retail segment sells and services life, disability, auto and other insurance.

Talk about a boon for Charlotte and Raleigh.  The article also mentioned that those 2600 jobs average $82K a year salary.

[Linkin5]

Is there huge benefits for companys like this to move to North Carolina or Charlotte in particular?  It seems like Charlotte has been on a 20 year boom.

[bigredmed]

Is there huge benefits for companys like this to move to North Carolina or Charlotte in particular?  It seems like Charlotte has been on a 20 year boom.

They have tax incentives.

They have Cary, NC  (Affectionately called:  the  Containment Area for Relocated Yankees), so they have a lot of people who are not originally from there and an active population of new people just settling in as well as a bunch of locals who know their way around and seem pretty happy to show you what's what.

Its very nice there.

You call up the real estate taxes and the other taxes that CA and NY are charging, the BS intrusions of Bloomberg affecting the quality of life in NYC, and the fact that $82K per year gets you a nice house in a good school district as a single wage earner.   That means that your spouse can move, get the kids settled, take some time to figure out an action plan for their career, and look at all the high tech firms in the Triangle, the various universities, and the banks, etc and do all this without missing a beat financially compared to life in Cali or NYC.   Those transfer notices are now just a whole lot easier to pass out.

[NovakOmaha]

I heard it was the $89 million in incentives.  For that money I'd pack up.