Vancouver’s growing reputation as a branch plant city has Mission Hill Family Estate Winery owner Anthony von Mandl concerned about the city’s ability to retain its best and brightest.
That reputation was solidified further last week when Vancouver’s Dollar Giant Store announced a looming US$52 million sale to Virginia-based Dollar Tree Inc.
“We have virtually no corporate offices left,” von Mandl told a British Columbia Technology Industry Association luncheon last week. “Without corporate head offices you not only lack the funding to fund a society, but we lose our brightest talent. They go to Harvard. They go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They go to Stanford. They don’t come back. So, we don’t have enough economic base to finance R&D.”
However, things could be worse.
Calgary Economic Development noted last year that of Canada’s six largest cities, the cities with the most sluggish growth of head offices, as a percentage, between 2000 and 2009 were:
In contrast, the cities with the most vibrant growth of head offices, as a percentage, between 2000 and 2009 were:
Business in Vancouver tracks the largest B.C.-based companies that do business outside the province (See “Biggest B.C.-based national and global companies” – issue 1086; August 17-23).
Telus Corp. was ranked atop BIV’s most recent list of those companies with 34,100 employees. Next came the Jim Pattison Group with 31,000 employees and Best Buy Canada Ltd. with 19,708 employees.