During one of the darker weeks in the history of American finance, the city of Hartford received one piece of spectacularly good news.
Northeast Utilities, the giant utility that operates Connecticut Light & Power Co. and Yankee Gas, announced plans to move its corporate headquarters from Berlin to the heart of downtown Hartford.
Anytime the capital city scores a net gain of nearly 200 corporate professionals and adds its fourth Fortune 500 company headquarters, it’s a very big deal.
It’s particularly welcome news in the midst of a financial upheaval on Wall Street that threatens to spread to Main Street and around the world. Even as the markets quaked, the city took a major step forward.
NU said it will buy a 93,000-square-foot building at 56 Prospect St. from The Phoenix Cos.
The Phoenix had placed the three-story building on the market about six months ago as part of its plan to spin off its Phoenix Investment Partners subsidiary, which has been using the space.
Phoenix Investment Partners, which will change its name to Virtus Investment Partners after the spinoff, plans to stay in town as well, leasing space at 100 Pearl St. So the city won’t be gaining the NU executives at the expense of losing 140 or so investment professionals. It will keep them all.
And Berlin won’t be left out in the cold. More than 1,200 NU employees from CL&P and Yankee Gas will remain there.
NU ranked 419 on the 2008 list of Fortune 500 companies with annual revenues of $5.8 billion. It will bump The Phoenix, which ranked 756 on the Fortune 1000 with revenues of $2.6 billion, as the fourth largest company headquartered in Hartford. The city’s top three remain United Technologies, Aetna and Hartford Financial Services Group.
