Bob Collins
Is St. Paul going to lose Travelers?
In Annie Baxter’s story about the former St. Paul Companies now listing New York City as its official home, company spokesman Shane Boyd says:
“It’s just a designation. It’s in the documents. It’s just to designate where his primary office is. He still has an office here as he does in Hartford,” Boyd said. “It’s not like he’s in any one location all the time. But of the three executive offices, that’s the one he spends more time in.”
But it’s a word in the last line of her story that jumps out:
Boyd says there are no immediate plans to shift any St. Paul workers out of state.
The affirmation that Travelers is now New York-based confirms a story Baxter aired in 2006 that suggested that the company was operating a “decoy headquarters” in Minnesota.
State officials have been concerned for some time that the state would lose jobs after it lost its St. Paul identity. They may be hoping the company’s philanthropy is an indicator, however. In January, the company’s charitable foundation dropped $1.4 million on St. Paul schools.
Still, it’s hard to look at the St. Paul skyline and wonder what would happen if the company were to head East.
