Economy of Stamford, Connecticut

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The economy of Stamford, Connecticut is unusual for having a cluster of corporate headquarters (many of which moved from New York in the 1980s both to lower their tax bill and to be closer to the homes of their top executives).

The city has four Fortune 500 Companies, nine Fortune 1000 Companies, and thirteen Courant 100 Companies, as well as numerous divisions of large corporations. This gives Stamford the largest financial district in New York Metro outside New York City itself and one of the largest concentrations of corporations in the nation.

Royal Bank of Scotland announced in October 2005 that it would consolidate its North American headquarters in downtown Stamford and build the largest trading floor in North America (the current largest trading floor is in the UBS building across the street from where the new building is under construction).

[edit] Large and distinctive companies

  • Aladdin Capital Management LLC — a hedge fund manager with $21.5 billion in assets as of late 2007[1]
  • Citizens Communications (CZN) — headquarters, 3 High Ridge Park; a provider of telephone, television and Internet access to rural areas and small- and medium-sized towns and cities in 23 states; it also runs a local exchange carrier service in the western states through a subsidiary, Electric Lightwave LLC subsidiary; 6,100 employees companywide; 170 in Connecticut; $2.2 billion in annual revenues; Maggie Wilderotter, CEO since November 2004
  • Crane Co. (CR) — headquarters, 100 First Stamford Place; a diversified manufacturer of engineered systems ranging from vending machines to anti-skid brakes for aircraft; 10,400 employees, 90 in Connecticut; $2 billion in annual revenues; CEO Eric C. Fast
  • Conair Corporation — 1 Cummings Point Road; maker of blowdryers and other personal health care products, such as Jheri Redding and Rusk, and consumer electronic products, including telephones and Cuisinart products; the company is officially headquartered in East Windsor, New Jersey, but it is privately held by Leandro P. "Lee" Rizzuto, who maintains a home in lower Fairfield County near the Stamford office. Rizzuto is the 392nd richest American, with an estimated $925 million in assets, according to the Forbes magazine "Forbes 400" list. (Rizzuto, a cousin of former Yankees baseball player Phil Rizzuto, pleaded guilty to tax evasion in 2002. He was co-founder of the company with his father in 1959.)
  • Gartner Inc. (IT) — 56 Top Gallant Road; provides research and analysis on the information technology sector; 3,700 employees comanywide; 730 of them in Fairfield County; $989 million in annual revenues; CEO Gene Hall
  • General Electric Capital Corp. — headquarters of a major division of General Electric, 260 Long Ridge Road
  • General Re Corp. — division of Berkshire Hathaway, 695 East Main St.; a holding company for global reinsurance and related operations. It owns General Reinsurance Corporation and is one of the largest reinsurers worldwide; 895 employees in county, 3,200 companywide; $10.5 billion in revenues in 2003; CEO Joseph P. Brandon
  • Hexcel Corp. (HXL) — headquarters; develops and makes carbon fibers, industrial fabrics and lightweight, high-performance composite materials, and parts and structures used in commercial aerospace, space and defense, recreation and other industries; 4,455 employees, 35 of them in Connecticut; $1.2 billion in annual revenues; CEO David Berges
  • MXenergy (privately held) — sells electricity and natural gas. The company's fixed-price one- to three-year contracts for homeowners and small businesses were a large part of the reason why the company grew 382.1 percent in revenue in the three years from 2002 to 2005. The company made the Inc. magazine "Inc. 500" list of fastest growing small companies in 2006, ranking No. 370. In 2005 the company had $326.1 million in annual revenue and 100 employees, according to Inc. magazine.
  • Odyssey Re Holdings Corp. (ORH) — a global property-casualty reinsurance company, 80-percent-owned by Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: FFH) of Toronto; 600 employees, 300 of them in Connecticut; $2.6 billion in annual revenues; CEO Andrew A. Barnard
  • Outdoor Life Network — (owned by Comcast) headquarters, 281 Tresser Blvd. (NFL studios are there.)
  • Pitney Bowes Inc. (PBI) — headquarters, 1 Elmcroft Road; the world's biggest maker of postal meters and mailing equipment and provides mailing and delivery software and services to companies; 32,700 employees companywide, 3,500 in Fairfield County; $5.5 billion in annual revenues; CEO Murray Martin
  • SAC Capital Advisors LLC, a hedge fund run by Steven A. Cohen
  • Sempra Energy — trading division
  • Silgan Holdings Inc. (SLGN) — headquarters, 4 Landmark Square; a supplier of consumer goods packaging products with a 50 percent share of the U.S. metal food container market; 7,500 employees, 225 of them in Connecticut; annual revenues of $2.5 billion; Co-CEOs Anthony J. "Tony" Allott and D. Greg Horrigan
  • Star Gas Partners L.P. (SGU) — headquarters, 2187 Atlantic St.; distributor of home heating oil, propane and other fuels in the Midwest and eastern U.S.; mostly owned by shareholders; 2,700 employees companywide; revenues of $1.2 billion; CEO Irik P. Sevin
  • Statoil ASA — North American headquarters, 1055 Washington Blvd.; Statoil ASA is Norway's largest oil and gas company.
  • Student Loan Corp. (STU) — headquarters; originates, holds and services student loans; company is mostly owned by Citigroup; 550 employees, 30 of them in Connecticut; revenues of $1.5 billion; CEO Michael J. Reardon
  • Suranya Capital Partners — called a "Tiger Cub" firm as one of the companies headed by alumni of Julian Robertson's Tiger Management.[2]
  • Thomson Reuters — former operational headquarters of The Thomson Corporation; the company has retained a significant presence in Stamford since the April 2008 merger with Reuters.
  • Time Warner Cable — headquarters of this division
  • UBS (UBS) — U.S. headquarters, 677 Washington Blvd.; a financial services company; 4,000 employees in Fairfield County; The UBS trading floor in Stamford, Connecticut holds the Guinness World Record as the largest securities trading floor in the world. The 103,000 square-foot operation has 40 foot arched ceiling freeing it of columns or walls. The size of two football fields and home to 1,400 traders and staff who handle about $1 trillion worth of transactions a day. It is roughly 227 wide by 410 feet long.
  • Vineyard Vines (privately held) — The company designs and sells ties, polo shirts, flip-flops and other products. It has a store on Martha's Vineyard and (in partnership with others) has opened stores in Greenwich, and Nantucket. In 2005 the company made the Inc. magazine "Inc. 500" list of fastest growing companies, placing at No. 202 with revenue growth of 547 over three years (2002 to 2004). In 2006, the company again made the list, this time at No. 217 with 569.4 percent growth in revenues over three years (from 2003 to 2005). Its 2005 revenues came to 23.8 million (up from 13.2 the year before) and 85 employees (up from 45 the year before), according to Inc. The company was founded in 1998.
  • World Wrestling Entertainment — 1241 E. Main St.; headquarters of the company said to be the largest sports entertainment company in the world.
  • Xerox Corp. — headquarters, 800 Long Ridge Road; a Fortune 500 company that makes and sells color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Harrington, Shannon D., "Aladdin starts company to handle risky transactions", Bloomberg News article, as publsihed in The Advocate, business section, November 22, 2007, p B1
  2. ^ Fishman-Lapin, Julie, "New fund offered at Suranya", article in The Advocate, business section, November 22, 2007, p B1

[edit] External links