Text Size:
A|
A|
A
Email
PrintShipping giant FedEx Corp., based in Tennessee, has been slogging through courts across the country, trying to defend its system of using independent contractors in its important, truck-based FedEx Ground division.
Yes, that's the division based in Moon. Never let it be said Western Pennsylvania has lost its ability to shake the corporate world. Or the world's ability to shake up Pittsburgh.
The Post-Gazette's annual Top 50 section most closely tracks public companies that call this region home, but the tradition is also to pull together a list of businesses that fly executives in and out of here to check on significant local operations. While the selection of companies that make the list isn't comprehensive, the goal is to call out those that have a sizable enough presence to cause ripples through the regional economy.
Every year, it seems some players shift around between the local public companies list and the one of companies based elsewhere as a result of constant mergers and acquisitions in the corporate world.
PDFNova Corp. in Moon was acquired last year by Middle Eastern investment group International Petroleum Investment Corp. The operations have stayed but now everyone answers to a different place.
A number of bank employees and customers also felt money moving around last year when Buffalo, N.Y.-based First Niagara came into this market by acquiring branches from Downtown-based PNC Financial Services Group. PNC had acquired Cleveland bank National City and the government required that some overlapping locations be sold.
Even as area residents were being courted by First Niagara and its marketing budget, authorities in Cleveland were watching to see what the Pittsburgh bank might do in their fair city.
Some businesses just quietly fade off local radar screens.
Sony Corp., out of Japan, has been on the annual list of companies based elsewhere for years as its Westmoreland County plant kept hundreds of people employed making televisions. But that facility has been winding down operations in recent months and should be closed soon. Sony probably won't be on the list next year.
Siemens AG, out of Germany, keeps tinkering with its business plans. So far Western Pennsylvania has continued to be a part of those even as the company pulls back on one of its many ventures and pushes forward in others.
A continued presence here, and thousands of employees in the Keystone state, helped the company convince Pennsylvania officials last year to demand only a portion of the funds back that Siemens received to build a fuel cell plant in Munhall several years ago. Siemens later decided the market for fuel cells had lost energy.
A number of companies headquartered elsewhere had a tumultuous 2009, as is reflected in stock market swings such as those seen for AK Steel, real estate broker CB Richard Ellis, Oshkosh and Huntington Bancshares.
It's not always possible to tell, just from the stock market gyrations, whether the news is good or bad for the local economy.
DISH Network, of Englewood, Colo., posted a 87.3 percent stock price increase last year. But in November, the company announced it would close its 600-employee call center in McKeesport this spring. The official reason, given as part of the announcement, was that the center "does not meet our business needs."
Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.
