ConAgra moving to Chicago

Post by **Coyote** » Thu Sep 10, 2015 9:06 am

Could a deal for ConAgra be on Buffett’s plate?

Russell Hubbard: World-Herald staff writer wrote:“This is a logical acquisition candidate because of ConAgra’s brands and leadership positions in its markets,” said David Kass, a finance professor at the University of Maryland and a shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway...

Omaha-based companies purchased by Berkshire include insurer National Indemnity in 1967, Nebraska Furniture Mart in 1983, Borsheims jewelers in 1985, the Omaha World-Herald Co. in 2011 and Oriental Trading Co. in 2012.

RNcyanide · Post by **RNcyanide** » Sun Sep 20, 2015 7:42 am

http://www.omaha.com/money/omaha-passed ... d7dcb.html

No new information in this article, really, but it provides a little more insight as to why certain decisions were made in the past.

RNcyanide · Post by **RNcyanide** » Sun Sep 20, 2015 7:56 am

http://www.omaha.com/money/omaha-jobs-o ... 320b9.html

And more speculation.

GetUrban · Post by **GetUrban** » Sun Sep 20, 2015 12:27 pm

Goes to show you that it's extremely important to separate out decisions granting tax incentives from decisions affecting the long-term configuration of the urban fabric of a city. If leaders at the time did treat them as separate issues, we could have kept ConAgra and Jobbers and now we'd only be looking at losing the prestige and jobs of a F500 HQ. But now, after only 27 years we may have lost both.

PotatoeEatsFish · Post by **PotatoeEatsFish** » Mon Sep 21, 2015 8:44 pm

Still think a tech company would love that campus. Get lost already Conagra

MTO · Post by **MTO** » Tue Sep 22, 2015 1:18 pm

Christ our downtown workforce will drop to Lincoln's level soon.

Midwestern · Post by **Midwestern** » Tue Sep 22, 2015 2:52 pm

It is not the end of the world if ConAgra's HQ leaves, and there's probably very little Omaha could do to influence their decision anyway, so at this point it's best to be prepared in case they leave.

There is so much potential to turn ConAgra's campus into several buildings connected to parking garages that have ground-level retail. That would be a great compromise between making that land more dense while still having convenient parking for the employees of whatever new HQ/businesses we could lure downtown. I think one of the #1 reasons employees give for why they don't like downtown is that parking is such a hassle. There are ways to make parking more convenient while still having good ground level vibrancy.

The worst thing that could be done is to just say that downtown is gonna be ruined for such and such period of time. No. That land would be the most prime spot in Omaha for a company to build on. Right across from the Old Market, right by HOA park, right on the river, the first thing you see crossing the bridge, etc. So much potential.

This is not all doom and gloom if ConAgra moves their HQ.

bigredmed · Post by **bigredmed** » Tue Sep 22, 2015 4:11 pm

MTO wrote:Christ our downtown workforce will drop to Lincoln's level soon.

Lincoln spent too much effort on the state and the university. We didn't have the luxury of either error.

PotatoeEatsFish · Post by **PotatoeEatsFish** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 10:26 pm

I would be interested to see what company would take their HQ. After all its a very nice complex.

Bella2017 · Post by **Bella2017** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 11:10 pm

Bottom line.... We have people in positions within corporations who shouldn't be in those positions. We have people who get along with others, always are there filled with company spirit, but you never know exactly what they do for the company besides bs. Then we have the hustlers in companies who take on others workload, carry no power or authority, & scramble @ the simple hope for a promotion, but lose out because some idiot attends team functions but has no idea how to do the role they were promoted for. Then they hire more idiots because they can't have someone smarter than them potentially taking their job. It takes the big guys to come in & shut it down for everyone to be like "|expletive|!! How did this happen" they've shown substantial loss year after year & didn't shake things up enough to get it under control. Nebraska is great, & actually rumor is Nebraska is the next Silicon Valley. To have it be the Silicon Valley... We need all the want-entrepreneurs to step aside, & let the entrepreneurs build the city. We have so many people running around like minions working for others profits & then others show boating to act like they know or fill positions giving advice about topics they shouldn't be. This slows up getting good people & companies actually launched. It baffles me how people don't logically look at things. If ConAgra leaves, Omaha will figure it out. Maybe if someone gets upset off enough we will bring in a company to take conagras perks they received from community & stop dropping are pants everytime a F500 company negotiates being located here. We are in the center of America. We have land. In California to build or have anything you have to tear down buildings & start over. We are a great community, & offer lots of things. Instead of shipping out, people should be shipping in.

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 1:34 am

The shareholders meeting tomorrow at 830 is going to be interesting for Omaha.

Post by **Brad** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 9:22 am

ConAgra employees to learn of changes next week; job cuts likely but 'significant presence' to remain in Omaha

http://www.omaha.com/money/conagra-empl ... 53586.html

Russell Hubbard / World-Herald staff writer wrote:He said "likely yes" that there would be job cuts, geographic reshuffling and a greater emphasis on Illinois, where the company already has substantial offices outside of Chicago for its consumer-foods division, and where Connolly lives.

RNcyanide · Post by **RNcyanide** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 9:49 am

I bet you they'll move the HQ. Keep a handful of people here as a consolation prize.

NovakOmaha · Post by **NovakOmaha** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 10:03 am

I would imagine that there is a truck on the way to the Illinois offices, full of cash, from the state of Illinois. Name a state that wouldn't love a corporate relocation, a highly visible corporate relocation and for now a fortune 500 company. I'm thinking tax abatement, low or no corporate tax, no tax on personal property or aircraft, millions per employee for training and relocation. In short, name your price, we'll send a truck.

I have to wonder what the company would look like today without the acquisition of Ralcorp.

RNcyanide · Post by **RNcyanide** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 10:07 am

As much as it irritates me how all this came about and the likely departure of the HQ, I would be more upset if we did the same thing we did 25 years ago and babe ourselves out to keep them here.

RNcyanide · Post by **RNcyanide** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 10:07 am

Wow, really? w hore becomes 'babe?'

GetUrban · Post by **GetUrban** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 12:39 pm

Bella2017 wrote:Bottom line.... We are in the center of America. We have land. In California to build or have anything you have to tear down buildings & start over. ...

Hahahaha...yeah right, we would never tear down anything to make way for a F500 company in Omaha.

jessep28 · Post by **jessep28** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 1:51 pm

RNcyanide wrote:Wow, really? w hore becomes 'babe?'

I prefer the term "slore."

Post by **Brad** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 2:43 pm

Rumors rolling out of ConAgra are 1200 Layoffs... Uncertain if that’s Omaha or Company wide. That would be 40% of the Omaha Staff if its just Omaha.

Post by **Brad** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 3:03 pm

Brad wrote:Rumors rolling out of ConAgra are 1200 Layoffs... Uncertain if that’s Omaha or Company wide. That would be 40% of the Omaha Staff if its just Omaha.

More Rumor... Sounds like most (but not all) of the 1200 will be in Omaha.

Midwestern · Post by **Midwestern** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 3:06 pm

Well it's safe to assume that the HQ is going to Illinois otherwise they would have said the HQ is staying instead of saying a "significant presence" which as someone else pointed out, sounds like consolation prize language. And also sounds like a lot of the jobs will be laid off. Hopefully they'll keep some jobs in those buildings that are by the Harriman...

I would hope that there are a few decently sized companies that would be interested in possibly re-locating downtown if they had the opportunity to build to suit somewhere on ConAgra's old land.

We can't just complain and cry about "oh this is so bad for downtown", the city leaders need to be coming up with some possible businesses (there's plenty in the Metro area to be talking to...) to start filling up that land ASAP.

If ConAgra does leave or mostly leave, the very first thing done needs to be to repave a 9th street and re-connect the grid. Keep ConAgra's buildings for now, but the two diagonal ones are obvious candidates to be demolished at some point in the future since they completely mess with the street grid. Would the city be able to buy any of those lots so they can control the future development?

Garrett · Post by **Garrett** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 4:06 pm

I have strong faith in Omaha's ability to bounce back from this. If the 1,200 number is true, then that is 1,200 educated professionals suddenly available. There could be a company out there that would love the look of that availability.

Erik · Post by **Erik** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 4:23 pm

It's going to be more than 1200 for Omaha. If I were betting Id say we lose closer to 2000 jobs in total.

Remember that a significant number of jobs are moving to Chicago that wont be cut.

Between this and UP we have lost nearly 2500 high paying jobs in two weeks. Going to be a dark year or two for the population estimates numbers. We will have to add another year or two before we hit that 1,000,000 mark along with a significant drop in our average income.

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 5:06 pm

Garrett wrote:I have strong faith in Omaha's ability to bounce back from this. If the 1,200 number is true, then that is 1,200 educated professionals suddenly available. There could be a company out there that would love the look of that availability.

Our economy is plenty good enough to survive something like this, but Conagra isn't the only company cutting jobs. The job market is tightening right now and I expect it takes some time to absorb this loss.

bmt · Post by **bmt** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 7:00 pm

About a year ago I had an interview at ConAgra, and looking back I am very glad I didn't get the job. Half of the interview was on speaker phone with the Sr HR director who just happened to be located out of Illinois.

Uffda · Post by **Uffda** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 11:57 pm

A co-worker has a spouse that works at Con Agra --- he said they were hoping to last long enough to get laid off as they don't want to move to Chicago.

Anon · Post by **Anon** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 5:17 am

If the number is 1200 (which seems really high, maybe that's an eventual goal) the vast majority of them have to be from Omaha - Omaha has ~2000 corporate employees while Naperville, Illinois has ~400. So Omaha taking most of whatever cuts happen is not a surprise at all.

Assuming Chicago is the permanent destination for everything, and Omaha isn't made operational HQ or something like that, this would be a multi-year very complex move. The vast majority of the company's expertise, and all of its IT, is in Omaha. Only a small percentage would be willing to move to Chicago, and probably only a small percentage will even be asked to. So Conagra will have to phase out functions in Omaha over a long period of time, it's not feasible to lose the vast majority of the work force and hire them all off Chicago streets. The corporate structures and bureaucracy are huge and complex, it will take a long time before they can just dump Omaha.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 7:42 am

Anon, after hundreds in IT are eliminated either because their projects were canceled or because they were outsourced, it will be relatively easy to move the remaining folks if ConAgra so chooses.

The corporate bureaucracy is huge at ConAgra at this very moment. But starting next week, so many managers are going to be let go as part of the Spans & Layers effort.

I'll just say that I thought the 1,200 numbers seems low, since IT is thought to give up almost 500 alone.

RNcyanide · Post by **RNcyanide** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 8:12 am

This thread takes the cake as the most depressing thread on the forum right now.

mr. omaha · Post by **mr. omaha** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 8:45 am

Once the news breaks that the HQ is leaving downtown, I too will have a difficult decision to make: Do I take a leak or a dump on Mike Harper's grave once he croaks.

GetUrban · Post by **GetUrban** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 9:08 am

It's ironic that Connoly is looking to remake ConAgra to have a more of a younger, hipper image and is possibly interested in more of an Urban downtown Chicago location for office space to attract younger employees, instead of suburban-type settings such as Naperville, or downtown Omaha's riverfront....according to today's OWH story.

Too bad we don't still have an urban setting for them, such as jobbers would have provided. I suppose they could build something like that, but they don't look be be healthy enough to spend money on bricks & mortar right now.

Terrible news for current employees though.

mr. omaha · Post by **mr. omaha** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 9:13 am

Nothing screams "hip" like a can of Chef Boyardee.

GetUrban · Post by **GetUrban** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 10:04 am

mr. omaha wrote:Nothing screams "hip" like a can of Chef Boyardee.

....eaten straight out of the can cold, yum!

Who buys that stuff anyway?

mr. omaha · Post by **mr. omaha** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 10:45 am

GetUrban wrote:
mr. omaha wrote:Nothing screams "hip" like a can of Chef Boyardee.
....eaten straight out of the can cold, yum!

Who buys that stuff anyway?

Didn't you hear what Connolly said? Hipsters, obviously... I can't wait for the Slim Jim food truck to start rollin' through Benson. The hip kids are gunna flock to it like flies to a bloated corpse.

GRANDPASMUCKER · Post by **GRANDPASMUCKER** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 10:56 am

GetUrban wrote:
mr. omaha wrote:Nothing screams "hip" like a can of Chef Boyardee.
....eaten straight out of the can cold, yum!

Who buys that stuff anyway?

15 to 20 years ago many people had cans of Chef Boyardee in their kitchen cabinets. Today I don't think many of us have any Chef Boyardee in our kitchens. The hamburger in those little cans of Chef Boyardee was getting expensive so over the years Con Agra starting making imitation hamburger from cheaper materials to replace the hamburger. Some people did not notice that the new hamburger in those cans was not really hamburger anymore but most of us noticed and quit buying it. The same thing has happened with many of ConAgra's products where they tweaked and messed with them to the point that they were not any good anymore. There is a business out in a strip mall off 77th & Dodge called Innovations Research. Innovations Research is supposedly an independent testing and research company but its always been obvious that they are connected to ConAgra. Innovations Research gets thousands of people to come in and taste test food products for a small stipend of about $20 or $30 dollars. Often ConAgra will try to come up with cheaper ingredients to use in their products and then they will use Innovations Research to taste test the new products and ideas with the public. 10 years ago every other house on the block had a freezer full of those Banquet Frozen TV dinners. Those Banquet Frozen dinners often sold for less then a dollar and they had a dozen varieties. ConAgra was selling those Banquet dinners by the millions but they were so cheap that the profit margin on them was too small so they were not making money. So what did ConAgra do? They started hunting for and creating cheaper ingredients. At one time the Banquet spaghetti frozen dinner was not to bad but when they came out with the new fake meat balls they were made out of cheap fillers all of a sudden those spaghetti dinners were awful. The Banquet meatloaf and Saulsbury steak dinners that were once good now tasted awful with the cheap imitation meat fillers. The Banquet frozen chicken dinners were taken off the shelves as it was impossible to find a cheap substitute for a piece of chicken. At the end of the day ConAgra could sell millions of those Banquet Frozen dinners but they couldnt make any money off them. In short I think one of the biggest problems ConAgra has ran into is making a product that they can sell cheap that still tastes good enough that the public will buy it.

GetUrban · Post by **GetUrban** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 12:38 pm

I admit I have their Healthy Choice Top Chef Steamers occasionally. Not bad for a meal in five minutes. I've never had the desire to try any of the older lines you speak of. Now it makes me wonder what's really in the steamers.

jessep28 · Post by **jessep28** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 1:15 pm

Their premium frozen dinners are likely fine. The target market is likely able to absorb price increases, and ConAgra can afford to raise prices along with the cost of ingredients.

mr. omaha · Post by **mr. omaha** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 2:41 pm

GetUrban wrote:I admit I have their Healthy Choice Top Chef Steamers occasionally. Not bad for a meal in five minutes. I've never had the desire to try any of the older lines you speak of. Now it makes me wonder what's really in the steamers.

If we lived in Cleveland I'd have a pretty good guess as to what was in their "steamers"....

RNcyanide · Post by **RNcyanide** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 6:59 am

http://www.omaha.com/money/if-conagra-m ... e9ed1.html

Ideas about what to do with ConAgra's campus after they leave. Sobering, but hopeful.

If you go down there and have a look around, there is actually still a good amount of space for new construction or reconstruction. They still have surface lots and expansive green areas. That could be home to some pricey condos at some point in the near future.

mr. omaha · Post by **mr. omaha** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 8:29 am

If there is even the SLIGHTEST chance that all that land could be redeveloped and re-integrated into the "urban" (not "suburban", mind you) core of the city, then I hope ConAgra HQ leaves Omaha and never comes back. I'm sick and tired of this one company dickin' downtown Omaha around.

I also would find it incredibly satisfying to tear down all of Mike Harper's "ugly red brick buildings".

ConAgra: Don't let the door hit you on the way out!!! ......actually, I hope it smacks you hard in the face and knocks you down a flight of stairs.

"SAVE THE CANYON!!!"