ATLANTA – State and local leaders welcomed what they hope will be the next Fortune 500 company headquarters to the city Thursday morning.
Gov. Nathan Deal and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed welcomed Richard Dugas Jr., the chairman, president and CEO of PulteGroup, to Atlanta at the location of its new headquarters set for a year from now.
PulteGroup is moving its corporate headquarters from Bloomfield Hills, Mi., in the Detroit area to the Capital City Plaza building right next to the MARTA Buckhead station.
The PulteGroup’s ranking in the 2013 Fortune 1000 list? No. 501. Oh so close.
In an interview after the welcoming event, Dugas said the PulteGroup once ranked as high as No. 250 in the Fortune 500 list, but then came the housing fall-out during the Great Recession in the late 2000s, and its business suffered along with other homebuilders.
And that helps explains why the PulteGroup decided to relocate its corporate headquarters outside of the Midwest to the Sun Belt.
“In 2012, the Southeast accounted for 37 percent of the homes that we closed and 43 percent of our invested capital,” Dugas said. “The total Midwest markets going back 20 years ago represented just under 30 percent of our business, and today it’s a little less than 10 percent.”
Dugas said it made sense to move the company to where it sees the greatest growth opportunities.
“We wanted to pick a location that would be closer to our investments and closer to the customers that we serve,” Dugas said. “The Sun Belt continues to grow aggressively, and it’s more convenient when we visit projects.”
The corporate headquarters will employ about 320 people, Dugas said with about half relocating from Michigan and the other half being hired in the Atlanta area…
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