DuPont Co. says it is consolidating its headquarters
offices, located since the World War I era in a high-rise complex fronting the
north side of Rodney Square in the heart of Wilmington, to the company's
suburban Chestnut Run Plaza complex west of the city, effective July 1.
NEW: The company plans to move between 800-1,000 workers
from the DuPont Building out to Chestnut Run; another 800-1,000 will remain,
for the time being, with DuPont's Performance Chemicals business, spokesman
Daniel A. Turner told me. DuPont is spinning off that unit as part of a new
company, Chemours (they say it "KEM-oars"), which has not yet chosen
a permanent headquarters. Company statement here.
The move comes as the city, Delaware's largest, struggles
with drug-trade slum violence, bank consolidation that has left some other
downtown offices empty, and a tight public budget. I asked DuPont's Turner if
Wilmington city taxes, services or operating costs had been part of the
company's calculation in moving out. Turner said the consolidation "was
driven more by" the company's reorganization of its properties as part of
the Chemours separation. Spokespeople for Wilmington Mayor Dennis P. Williams,
a former city police officer, and for New Castle County didn't immediately
return calls seeking comment.
Chemours, which accounts for around $7 billion of
DuPont's $35 billion in yearly sales, will take over the DuPont Building and
will be based there for the time being as it considers where to base its permanent
headquarters. Another recent DuPont spinoff, Axalta Corp., moved its offices
out of Delaware north to Philadelphia and Glen Mills, Pa. "The
consolidation of DuPont corporate headquarters at Chestnut Run will optimize
use of company facilities, support collaboration and improve efficiencies for
both DuPont and Chemours," DuPont said in its statement.
DuPont will continue to operate the Hotel du Pont and the
DuPont Theatre at its old Rodney Square headquarters, as well as the DuPont
Country Club in the nearby suburbs, spokesman Turner told me. The Performance
Chemicals spin-off is one of the steps urged on the company by activist
investor Nelson Peltz, who says DuPont shares have underperformed for years and
the company needs to boost profits or separate its businesses so they can fetch
higher prices for profit-hungry investors. DuPont has not acted on other
activist suggestions such as divesting the theater, hotel and club, which the
company says are a very small part of its overall business.
Neither the company nor the city government provided any
data on the impact of DuPont's move on city finances or company costs. "For more than a century, we have been
proud to call the city of Wilmington home," DuPont chairman and CEO Ellen
J. Kullman, a suburban Wilmington native, said in a statement. But, she added,
"looking ahead, we concluded that a single location for our headquarters
offices will help facilitate the close collaboration essential to our success
and to the growth of DuPont. A consolidated headquarters at Chestnut Run where
most of DuPont's businesses are headquartered will make it possible to draw on
people and knowledge across the company even more dynamically, on a daily
basis."
The company also noted the new HQ is close to the
Brandywine Creek site where the company's immigrant founder, E.I. du Pont de
Nemours, set up his gunpowder factory in 1802, and just down Delaware Route 141
from the DuPont Experimental Station
laboratories occupied by DuPont scientists and engineers, partners, and spin-off
companies. DuPont also operates the Stine-Haskell Research Center near Newark,
Del.
The company, once Delaware's dominant economic and social
force and its largest employer, has in recent years sold its former Seaford,
Del. nylon works and sold or spun off other plants around the state; its Edge
Moor titanium-dioxide works on the Delaware north of Wilmington will be part of
Chemours.
Source: Philly.com
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