Caterpillar Inc. (CAT), following Boeing, is the second Fortune 500 corporation to announce a relocation from Chicago in the previous two months. Caterpillar, Inc., an equipment manufacturer, has announced that it will relocate its corporate headquarters to Irving, Texas. The company already has a presence there, and they will be building upon and expanding their new facility that opened in 2021. 240 office staff are scheduled to join the manufacturer of excavators, bulldozers, and other construction machines at the new corporate office when it is completed in 2023. In a statement, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) excitedly stated that the company’s move is a “major win for the people of North Texas and the entire state.”
In a statement, Caterpillar Chairman and CEO Jim Umpleby stated, “We believe it is in the best strategic interest of the company to make this move, which supports Caterpillar’s strategy for profitable growth as we help our customers build a better, more sustainable world.”
In response to the move, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) reaffirmed that CAT would continue to provide support to the 17,400 staff in Illinois who continue to work for Caterpillar in cities such as East Peoria, Mapleton, Mossville, Pontiac, and Decatur. These locations, despite the company’s recent expansion, remain Caterpillar’s largest manufacturing plant in North America. Similarly, Caterpillar stated that all of its manufacturing operations would remain unaffected.
After Caterpillar relocated from East Peoria, Deerfield became the company’s headquarters in 2017. In 2021, the owner of the rented facility where Caterpillar operates placed it up for sale. Hypothetically, if all employees choose to relocate to Irving or other Caterpillar locations, Caterpillar could easily walk away from the location when its lease expires as no manufacturing operations are located there.
Caterpillar joins a slew of other large construction-related companies in shifting their worldwide headquarters to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. AECOM transferred its corporate offices from Los Angeles to Dallas in October of last year, and Jacobs Engineering Group relocated its worldwide headquarters from Pasadena, California to Dallas in 2016. Fluor relocated its headquarters from Aliso Viejo, California, to Irving in 2006.
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