In Time Warner Cable Inc.”™s decision to move its titular headquarters from Stamford to New York City, on the eve of its spinout from Time Warner Inc., Connecticut is losing what would have ranked as one of the half-dozen largest companies based in the state.
The news was first reported Aug. 4 by Multichannel News, an online trade publication covering the television industry, which obtained an internal Time Warner Cable memo.
With its lease at Harbor Drive in Stamford set to expire, Time Warner Cable (TWC) chose to formally relocate its nominal headquarters to New York City, at the same time accepting a grant to add jobs in North Carolina where it has been testing an early digital TV product and where it will have more than 1,000 employees.
This year, Gov. M. Jodi Rell”™s administration has put together multimillion-dollar incentive packages to dissuade General Re Corp. from leaving Fairfield County, and to convince “Ice Age” animator Blue Sky Studios Inc. to move from Westchester County, N.Y.
Connecticut may have had little shot, however, at putting together any package of incentives to entice TWC to stay put. CEO Glenn Britt and other key executives have been working out of the company”™s New York City office since early 2007, according to Multichannel News.
TWC first established its Stamford office in 1992, but does not operate a system in Connecticut, which is dominated by Cablevision Systems Corp. and Comcast Corp.; and where AT&T Inc. is laying the groundwork for its own TV service.
TWC would have vied with Norwalk-based Xerox Corp. for the status as the second largest company based in Fairfield County, while perhaps stamping Stamford with additional corporate prestige parallel to what Cablevision has brought Bethpage, N.Y., where it is based.
TWC is coming off the best second quarter in its history, adding more than 650,000 service accounts generating new revenue. The company had a $277 million profit, flat from a year ago, on $4.3 billion in revenue, up 7 percent.
During the quarter, TWC announced it would invest $550 million in a wireless communication joint venture, which will allow it to sell mobile telephone service using the Sprint Nextel Corp. network. Other joint venture investors include Clearwire Corp., Comcast Corp., Google Inc. and Intel Corp.
“The existing technologies (are) something to do if consumers really demand the quadruple play, and we”™ve seen very little evidence of the demand for that so far,” Britt said in a conference call with investors earlier this month. “Behind the scenes there is a great deal of work going on, on what those products might look like; but we don”™t feel any compulsion to roll those things out right now.”
