Saskatchewan-based Foran Mining Corp.’s June 20 announcement that it will move its headquarters to Vancouver June 23 inevitably reminds Vancouverites that the city has had trouble landing large companies’ head offices.
Foran (TSX-V:FOM) is a five-employee company that mines copper, zinc and silver that will take about 2,900-square-feet in the United Kingdom building at the corner of Granville and Hastings streets.
The main reason for the move is that most members of the management team live in Vancouver.
Vancouver, however, has long punched below its weight when it comes to attracting corporate head offices of large companies.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP data last year revealed that B.C. lost more head-office jobs than any of Canada’s other four biggest provinces during the past decade. (See “Wanted: Corporate culture that champions growth” – issue 1098; November 9-15, 2010.)
Only 84 of Canada’s largest 500 companies called Vancouver home in 2009, according to the FP500 database. The FP500 is a list of the largest 500 companies in Canada.
The good news is that this is 23.5% more than the 68 FP500 companies, which had head offices in Vancouver in 2000.
Other cities, such as Edmonton (64.7%) and Calgary (46.2%), had much higher growth rates for large corporate head offices during the same period.
Toronto (-13.4%) and Montreal (-19.4%) had the steepest losses in the percentage of FP500 corporate head offices between 2000 and 2009.
Toronto led the country with 266 head offices in 2009. Calgary was next with 114, followed by Montreal with 108.
All other major Canadian cities had fewer head offices than did Vancouver in 2009.
Glen Korstrom
Twitter: GlenKorstrom