One thing that we like to cover here at WSTD is the demographics of financial business sectors. Recently we noted some mainstream media coverage of the trend to open up shop in Greenwich, CT. Now comes news that a major hedge fund services firm has gone a bit further into the Connecticut heartland:

A New York state firm that provides services to hedge funds has leapfrogged over Fairfield County to establish a large support operation in Hartford. In adding 150 jobs in downtown Hartford, GlobeOp Financial Services L.L.C. becomes the first company to take advantage of two job incentive programs that became effective July 1, the Job Creation Tax Credit and the Displace Worker Tax Credit.

In so doing, the company passed up on situating the facility close to Greenwich, whose large hedge fund cluster has attracted a number of supporting services firms. Greenwich also offers the advantage of being a quick drive from GlobeOp’s headquarters in Harrison, N.Y.

One might think, what gives? And the story does point out the plethora of insurance companies in Hartford and their skill-relevancy to hedge fund services. However there may be a more sinister motive at play:

“Hartford might seem … far enough way from Greenwich that maybe your employees might not as readily jump ship to go work for a hedge fund’s internal operations,” McGuire said.

Given that’s the case, this does work both ways. GlobOp may benefit from better retention, but they also deny themselves access to a talent pool that is probably smart enough to realize that moving to Hartford (or anywhere near it) is going to remove them from a safe regional workforce.

It will be interesting to see if anyone follows their move.

No Comments