Link: CEO of Brokerage Sticking to Game Plan.
From the LA TImes, an interview with Ameritrade (NASD: AMTD) CEO, Joe Moglia:
Q: Your rival E-Trade moved last year from California to New York, the hub of the financial services business in the U.S. Are you busy scouting Manhattan office space, or does being based in the Midwest give you an advantage?
A: First of all, the majority of things that take place in an online brokerage take place online. You could be in Zimbabwe, OK? No. 2, in an environment where productivity, efficiency and scalability is the name of the game, you want to go where your costs are reasonable. California, to me, is on the expensive side. New York, to me, is on the expensive side.
And nobody even knows you're there. I worked in Merrill Lynch's downtown headquarters for 17 years and I never went to visit any of our competitors or anybody else there.
So we're in Omaha, frankly, because it's cheaper, better, faster. We attract a nice array of talent. People in the Midwest are very polite.
Amen! For some time The Stalwart has wondered why financial companies, whose business is done almsot entirely over the phone and on the computer insist on moving to where real estate is most expensive.
perhaps it has more to do with brokers wanting to live in new york and la, as opposed to kansas city, there is attractiveness to employees to consider
Posted by: brazos | July 14, 2005 at 10:11 PM