West Cook News

Illinois' wealthiest man, billionaire Ken Griffin, recently announced that he will be relocating the headquarters of his hedge fund firm Citadel from Chicago to Miami, citing rising violence throughout the city and the tax benefits Florida offers as the reasons for his decision. 

Griffin is among the 50 wealthiest people in the world, with an estimated worth of $28.9 billion, a recent MarketWatch report said. His announcement was the third in the last two months of major companies pulling their headquarters out of Illinois. Citadel officials cited Chicago's high crime rate as a factor in Griffin's decision.

“Chicago will continue to be important to the future of Citadel, as many of our colleagues have deep ties to Illinois,” Griffin said in a letter to employees, quoted by MarketWatch. “Over the past year, however, many of our Chicago teams have asked to relocate to Miami, New York and our other offices around the world.”

Oak Park Village Trustee Jim Dodge weighed in on the current exodus of businesses leaving the state, telling the West Cook News that considering Illinois' business policies, he wasn't surprised. He cited concerns about massive tax increases, employee cost of living and soaring crime rates as reasons for companies to seek greener pastures in other states.

"I think it says that these companies are looking at their business needs and looking to meet them and deciding under Illinois law its better to be elsewhere," Dodge told the News. "With all the structural changes in Illinois, I'm not surprised to see this happening."

The Oak Park Village trustee added that lawmakers need to make some changes if they want businesses to stay in Illinois.

"They need to start thinking about the totality of what a business looks at," he said. "We need to be more business friendly, that would be a good start. We need to start thinking these things through if we want these businesses to stay here in Illinois."

Caterpillar recently announced that it is going to relocate its headquarters from Deerfield, Ill., to Irving, Texas; a company press release said.

“We believe it’s in the best strategic interest of the company to make this move, which supports Caterpillar’s strategy for profitable growth as we help our customers build a better, more sustainable world,” Caterpillar Chairman and CEO Jim Umpleby said in the release.

Boeing announced in May that it is relocating its headquarters from Chicago to a suburb of Washington, D.C., NBC Chicago reported.

“We are excited to build on our foundation here in Northern Virginia," Boeing President and CEO Dave Calhoun said in a statement, quoted in the NBC Chicago report. "The region makes strategic sense for our global headquarters given its proximity to our customers and stakeholders, and its access to world-class engineering and technical talent."

Chief Executive magazine conducted a survey of approximately 700 business owners from every state and ranked Illinois 48th overall, meaning it is the third-worst state in the country for business; The Center Square reported recently. Only California and New York were ranked lower than Illinois. Texas, Florida and Tennessee were ranked as the top states for doing business.

“We’re too corrupt,” Wirepoints president Ted Dabrowski told The Center Square. “Our taxes are way too high. We have way too many regulations and we have massive debts, and that is plenty of reason enough for companies to not want to locate in Illinois, not to mention the state is shrinking in population so it's not a growth state to put your business in.”