KCRag Forum

I couldn't find anything about this on the Rag. The Star today says that Yellow Freight moved its headquarters to Nashville with no public announcement.

Yellow long had been one of the Kansas City area’s top public companies. But it quietly moved its headquarters to Nashville earlier this year. The move, noticed in a Feb. 4 SEC filing rather than a press release, said it maintained a field resource center in Overland Park to provide a range of services, including finance and accounting.

They have now started eliminating top level positions that remain in OP.

Yellow Corp. said it has eliminated one of its C-suite positions — a position that had been occupied by an executive operating out of the company’s Overland Park offices.

I don't think the company was ever a great corporate citizen, but one more blow to KC.

The region as a whole needs to come together and create a comprehensive plan to maintain, and increase corporate presence in the region. This is getting ridiculous

Is Garmin the only major company still HQ here?

brewcrew1000 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:59 am Is Garmin the only major company still HQ here?

HR Block?

To a lesser extent, Hallmark? Burns & Mac? Black & Veatch? Lockton? Creative Planning? Seaboard?

Yeah it’s definitely been disheartening to follow the HQ exodus of nationally recognizable names from KC.

Cratedigger wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 9:09 am

brewcrew1000 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:59 am Is Garmin the only major company still HQ here?

HR Block?

To a lesser extent, Hallmark? Burns & Mac? Black & Veatch? Lockton? Creative Planning? Seaboard?

Yeah it’s definitely been disheartening to follow the HQ exodus of nationally recognizable names from KC.

American Century.

shinatoo wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 9:51 am

Cratedigger wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 9:09 am

brewcrew1000 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:59 am Is Garmin the only major company still HQ here?

HR Block?

To a lesser extent, Hallmark? Burns & Mac? Black & Veatch? Lockton? Creative Planning? Seaboard?

Yeah it’s definitely been disheartening to follow the HQ exodus of nationally recognizable names from KC.

American Century.

Sure.

I suppose I left the co-ops and AMC off as well

Here are the regional employers according to KCADC btw

https://thinkkc.com/business/regional-employers

I thought I had read about this earlier and the only reason they moved because the CEo moved to Nashville or was from Nashville. So they moved all of their Executives to the area and the HQ was still here in KC. But as we all know it's only a matter of time before those type of arrangements change.

Oracle appears to be the deathblow for previous Cerner workers here in KC. The convention moving really stinks and I think it tells you they are not committed and or do not care about KC at all. Which is a shame because I thought it was smart for our Mayor (maybe City Mgnr as well) to get out and meet with them and find out their plans for the KC metro. But it appears that was just a dog and pony show and it will be a slow bleed from here on in.

Best chance for KC is try to lure in some other up and companies and get them here to be on the upswing. Also doing everything we can to help nurture our own homegrown entrepreneurs & companies and really stress the importance of keeping them here and growing them large.

But KC is going to take blow after blow short term, despite having some decent help on Capital Hill. But competing with KS and STL for big companies is tough. I agree 100% that the KC Metro really needs it's own leadership and ability to act on it's own to attract, keep, and grow businesses in the METRO. The state of MO is never going to be useful unless we have a Governor that is either pro cities or pro-KC. Otherwise we will have to figure it out ourselves

I think it is always important to keep in mind that despite some internet era stumbles, Hallmark is a behemoth. I think we just hear less about it because it is privately held.

I heard about this awhile ago and I don’t think they’re moving hardly any employees, it’s just the top people going to Nashville. The base of employees still stays here.

Anthony_Hugo98 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:40 am The region as a whole needs to come together and create a comprehensive plan to maintain, and increase corporate presence in the region. This is getting ridiculous

A little too late now. There is hardly anything left in KC as far as big HQs. KCMO spent that last three decades competing with Kansas to even begin to compete with other national cities and Kansas only stopped and agreed to a truce once the companies started going back the other way. But by then the damage was done. Once companies move to the KS side, they tend to lose any civic pride or attachment, especially in the center city.

For the moment that seems to be true. Dukuboy is right in saying the CEO, a Tennessee resident, is the instigator of the move. Currently, the new headquarters in Nashville is on a little over 8000 sq ft comprising 10 offices. Still not good for KC.

As for Hallmark being a behemoth: not really. Annual sales of about 4 billion. I can't remember a time when that wasn't the case. 30 years ago, that was a good sized company.

missingkc wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 2:26 pm As for Hallmark being a behemoth: not really. Annual sales of about 4 billion. I can't remember a time when that wasn't the case. 30 years ago, that was a good sized company.

Ha, a behemoth for the region. Sales are similar to Garmin, no? (I assume we're both citing wikipedia)

dukuboy1 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 11:25 am
Best chance for KC is try to lure in some other up and companies and get them here to be on the upswing. Also doing everything we can to help nurture our own homegrown entrepreneurs & companies and really stress the importance of keeping them here and growing them large.

https://torch.ai/post/torchai-announces ... ber-sector

Can KCMO make some smaller bets like what KS did with Torch.AI? Seems to be paying off so far for KS.

Would love to see more of a focus on developing and attracting companies focused on renewable energy, EVs, Ag Tech or Industrial/Logistics technology. It seems like there is a "take what we can get" mentality as opposed to a coordinated plan. Just my impression, likely very off since I'm not apart of the work that goes into attracting talent/companies.

At the same time, the startup ecosystem seems more fragmented than from 2015-2018. Which was when I was last paying attention in KC. I know Kevin McGinnis and Keystone is trying to rev that engine back up but it seems like Covid really did a number on it.

But KC is going to take blow after blow short term, despite having some decent help on Capital Hill. But competing with KS and STL for big companies is tough. I agree 100% that the KC Metro really needs it's own leadership and ability to act on it's own to attract, keep, and grow businesses in the METRO. The state of MO is never going to be useful unless we have a Governor that is either pro cities or pro-KC. Otherwise we will have to figure it out ourselves

Agreed. Plus other cities we compete against also being a state capital puts them at an advantage

I don’t get what the big deal is. It sounds like the CEO is from Tennessee and just wanted to move back home, and he’s leaving all of the employee base here. That’s not really anything KC or anywhere could do about that.

As for Cerner, we all knew they were on the downswing for KC anyway. 75% of their employees were being sent remote already and Cerner had little interest in the community. Oracle was a chance to maybe change it for the better, but if not, then it doesn’t get any worse than what Cerner was already doing.

GRID wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 2:21 pm

Anthony_Hugo98 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:40 am The region as a whole needs to come together and create a comprehensive plan to maintain, and increase corporate presence in the region. This is getting ridiculous

A little too late now. There is hardly anything left in KC as far as big HQs. KCMO spent that last three decades competing with Kansas to even begin to compete with other national cities and Kansas only stopped and agreed to a truce once the companies started going back the other way. But by then the damage was done. Once companies move to the KS side, they tend to lose any civic pride or attachment, especially in the center city.

This ^^^

KCMO Companies that move from KCMO to the Kansas side have already proven that they have no civic pride or loyalty at all. That's why they moved for a few bucks in the first place. It seems that many of those major employers that move out of KCMO to jocoville always end up getting bought out and eventually moved. Waddell and Reed was the exception and then they were bought and moved. KCMO can't catch a break.

Jblanco wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 3:44 pm

GRID wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 2:21 pm

Anthony_Hugo98 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:40 am The region as a whole needs to come together and create a comprehensive plan to maintain, and increase corporate presence in the region. This is getting ridiculous

A little too late now. There is hardly anything left in KC as far as big HQs. KCMO spent that last three decades competing with Kansas to even begin to compete with other national cities and Kansas only stopped and agreed to a truce once the companies started going back the other way. But by then the damage was done. Once companies move to the KS side, they tend to lose any civic pride or attachment, especially in the center city.

This ^^^

KCMO Companies that move from KCMO to the Kansas side have already proven that they have no civic pride or loyalty at all. That's why they moved for a few bucks in the first place. It seems that many of those major employers that move out of KCMO to jocoville always end up getting bought out and eventually moved. Waddell and Reed was the exception and then they were bought and moved. KCMO can't catch a break.

The problem is all of KC's homegrown companies have aged out of KC. You are correct. The blame is mostly on the companies for moving, but it seemed like even those that did move lost that connection to the city when they left. A lot of that has to do with CEO's etc being bought out or passing. KC is seriously lacking people like Ewing Kuaffman and Stan Durwood now. People that truly cared about the city and had the means to make a difference. Sherwood is trying to if the city will let him.

Now KC no longer has a foundation of civic minded companies that truly care about the city. The few companies it has left are out in JoCo.

Hallmark is all KCMO has left. Maybe American Century. I don't think either one of them are nearly as strong as they once were, but I think they still try.

Places like Nashville, Charlotte, Austin etc have a very established and still growing base of big HQs that are imbedded in those communities and they collectively attract move of the same. How does KC seriously compete with these other cities when it has fallen to a third or fourth tier city in so many ways?

I really think the ONLY way is to reverse some of what caused it. KC needs to see some of what's left of its big companies to come into the city and make a statement. That has not happened. And actually, I firmly believe that the Cerner culture of building undesirable 1980's style suburban office parks in crappy locations is why Oracle has basically said no thanks to KC and is basically pulling out of KC. I think Oracle will be gone from KC within 5-7 years.

But think about it. Cerner set KC up to fail. Had Cerner built something down on the riverfront more in line with what Oracle has in Nashville and Austin, they would likely have kept a major presence in KC. And even if they didn't, it would have been much easier to re-lease the space in a more trendy development closer to the center city. Not to mention it would have been less harmful to the center city. Now KC will have millions of feet of suburban office space to sublease which means that chances of a new office building going up downtown in the next 20 years is pretty much zero. It's the sprint campus all over again only worse this time around.

Where would people want to relocate to:







And during that 20 years think of what KC will miss out on had things been done differently. Imagine if Sprint and Cerner had built half of their office space in the city. KC would be more like Denver or Minneapolis today.

Gotta try and get a Garmin or Black & Veatch or somebody to come downtown. KC is not going to land something like that from out of town. There is just too much higher level competition out there.

UMKC Roo wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 3:10 pm I don’t get what the big deal is. It sounds like the CEO is from Tennessee and just wanted to move back home, and he’s leaving all of the employee base here. That’s not really anything KC or anywhere could do about that.

As for Cerner, we all knew they were on the downswing for KC anyway. 75% of their employees were being sent remote already and Cerner had little interest in the community. Oracle was a chance to maybe change it for the better, but if not, then it doesn’t get any worse than what Cerner was already doing.

Yellow Freight is a pretty good size company. If the CEO at my company had wanted to move our company to another city to fit his lifestyle, he would have been ousted in moment by the BOD. A severe conflict of interest. I would think a public company would have a tough time justifying the very high cost of a move on this basis; there would have to be other reasons for the move. I would tend to agree that it's not the best thing for KC but I'd be surprised if their employees followed.

Highlander wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 6:13 pm I would think a public company would have a tough time justifying the very high cost of a move on this basis; there would have to be other reasons for the move. I would tend to agree that it's not the best thing for KC but I'd be surprised if their employees followed.

Sure but it has happened before in cities bigger than KC. Chipotle moved its entire company out of Denver and over to Newport Beach just to suit a new CEO. Didn't mean Denver's office market was going to hell, sometimes there are just circumstances that are out of a cities control.

Cities need to be able to make public improvements without relying on the shear luck of having Rich Uncle Pennybags as a resident, or Benevolence INC as a dominant employer