Billion-Dollar Investment Firm Flees Seattle Citing Civil Unrest

by Benjamin Nichols

 

A Seattle-based investment firm announced Monday that it will leave the city because of civil unrest and move south, taking billions with it.

Smead Capital Management President and CEO Cole Smead, told KSTAR NEWS, that “the unrest that has taken place in the city of Seattle… there really is not a downtown community today.”

Office buildings in the downtown are emptying out, according to Smead. “We’re hearing rumors of 40-story buildings that will be only 20-percent occupied by October,” he said.

Seattle’s Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, formerly called the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone or CHAZ, spans several blocks and has caused a disturbance to downtown life. Multiple shootings, rapes, robberies and a death have been reported within CHOP, according to Seattle police chief, and law enforcement had not been able to respond.

A signs reads “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest” in area that has been referred to by protesters by that name as well as “Capitol Hill Organized Protest, or CHOP, on June 14, 2020 in Seattle, Washington. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

Although Seattle has lower taxes, Phoenix, Arizona, where the new headquarters will be located, offers easier candidate recruitment and substantial lower cost of living, Smead said.

“My colleagues can pick the socio-economic rung of life that they want to live their lives, build their households and have a family if they’d like… Where we’re coming from just wasn’t like that,” Smead said.

Smead Capital Management manages over $1.3 billion dollars, according to the company’s 2019 annual report.

– – –

Benjamin Nichols is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “CHOP” by Derek Simone. CC BY 2.0.

 

 

 

 

 

 


Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

Related posts

3 Thoughts to “Billion-Dollar Investment Firm Flees Seattle Citing Civil Unrest”

  1. Pissed Off Nashvillian

    They’ll be fleeing Nash-Francisco next.

  2. Julie

    Expect more of this. During our team meeting it was noted that we are already looking at consolidating/eliminating some of our offices nationwide with permanent work at home teams. Why live in these cities when you can live anywhere in the US?

  3. Chitown Cap

    Well it looks like Arizona will be a blue state in short order, those employees will bring their liberal mind set to the desert and will eventually raise more anarchist to ruin that city and state. Libs are a bunch of locust hopping city to city sucking the life out of each one until the crop is ruined and there is nothing left. America’s over if this keeps up!!!

Comments