By David Pendered
Atlanta has provided a $3.2 million grant to NCR to help fund its relocation to Midtown.
Terms of the grant were unavailable. Information from an economic impact study conducted by Invest Atlanta, the city’s development arm, was not available Wednesday.
The legislation approved Tuesday by the Atlanta City Council, which provided the money, included these details:
- NCR will invest $260 million in new corporate headquarters;
- NCR will create 3,600 jobs that are new to the city of Atlanta;
- The jobs are expected to have an economic impact of $1.2 billion.
The legislation did not provide a timeline by which these milestones are to be met.
NCR has a market cap of $4.49 billion. It has not paid dividends in more than a year, according to stock data provided by wsj.com.
Clawback penalties are not unusual in these kinds of transactions.
For example, Carter’s Inc. agreed to a number of provisions to obtain a $350,000 grant it used to complete its relocation to offices in Buckhead. The Atlanta funding was part of a $30 million assistance package the company received to move to Atlanta.
The public benefits analysis to which Carter agreed in order to obtain the grant from Atlanta includes the following provisions:
- Carter must create 200 jobs in the city;
- The jobs must be fulltime positions, which is defined as at least 35 hours a week;
- Salaries and wages “must be greater than or equal to the average wages for the software development and related services industry in the City and Atlanta Metropolitan Statistical Area;”
- The benefit package for the positions must include “reasonable health benefits, retirement and sick pay,” as well as vacation.
To verify its compliance, Carter has agreed to file annual reports that include:
- Atlanta business license and application;
- Invoices and payment documentation;
- A report on the number of employees at Carter’s and their average wages.
Terms call for the amount of the clawback to be based on an amount to be derived from the difference between the objective of creating 200 jobs and the number actually created.
For example, if just 60 percent of those jobs is created, Carter’s would have come up 10 percent short of the minimum completion target of 70 percent. The clawback would be 10 percent of the grant.
NCR has said it intends to occupy its new Midtown campus in late 2017 or early 2018. The site is at Centergy North at Technology Square, located on Spring Street.
NCR also intends to maintain what it calls a “significant presence” at a campus in Atlanta’s northern suburbs. The company did not name a location, nor mention if the current location in Gwinnett County is a possibility.
The company chose Midtown as its future headquarters for the following reason, according to its Jan. 13 statement:
- “The new campus will be located at Centergy North at Technology Square on Spring Street, and will provide NCR with a state-of-the-art presence close to Atlanta’s rich innovation centers and leading academic institutions. In addition to helping the company consolidate a number of disparate facilities into unified and contemporary work environments, improved access to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport will make it easier for financial services, retail and hospitality customers from all over the world to visit Atlanta and experience NCR’s innovative technology solutions first hand.”
