One of my trade contacts that works in these CME Group buildings up for sale offers up his thoughts:
"As for CME, because this is NOT CBOT anymore: I have no real opinion on what they are doing. They claim the move to sell these buildings are not related to the threat to move, and no one seems to believe them much around here. They are real upset about the tax hike, but it is not like the state had a whole lot of choice. And out taxes for corp income are still lower than most others. Oh well. At any rate, I think CME will, if anything, try to move the corp offices to some other state for tax reasons and keep the facilities here. They seem to be setting up for that. They are probably trying to negotiate a bit with the governor to get a little help on the taxes too. Other companies are here. They can move the main officers and keep the rest here. That keeps the costs down and gets their goal I think. Otherwise, I think it would be too costly to move everything, and most of the allied companies, like you and me, would be loath to move I think, just because CME did."
Mike
