a dog-eared town

and it’s not going to be good. It seems someone has made an offer to buy Gtech. Of course the company hasn’t said who, but that’s because they’re playing coy because upper managements trying to make as much money for themselves as they can, regardless of what they say about their shareholders.

Part of selling yourself to another company, besides losing your soul, is that you lose your company headquarters. So, that wonderful building that’s being built in downtown Providence is NOT going to be the headquarters of Gtech. Heck, that’ll be one of the first things the new owners will do. Gotta raise cash and selling real estate is one of the ways to do that.

As a matter of fact, here’s a wonderful quote from the head flunky.

As to whether an acquisition would affect the new building, Vincent, the spokesman for GTECH said, “the management of the company is committed to the headquarters and the growth plan that’s been laid out. I can’t speculate on what the future would hold other than where we are today.”

The moneyshot, so to speak is, “I can’t speculate on what the future would hold…”. What that means in businesspeak is, if we get enough money, we’ll move to the moon, but I’m certainly not going to say anything right now.

If you think I’m wrong, ask John Hancock and Fleet Bank how their new corporate masters are? Let’s face it, both of those companies, and all the other companies in Boston that have been bought out have all had their headquarters moved and their is less employment there today. Why is that? Because they were the losers. They were the ones bought and didn’t do the buying.

When some flunky from Gtech says they are committed to the area, that’s pretty much the exact same thing the Boston companies said. And let’s face it, if a company isn’t going to stay in Boston, why the hell would they stay in Providence?

The real problem is that the wonderful government gave away everything to Gtech and got nothing in return. I can’t really blame Gtech because they’re doing what any company would try to do. But the morons on the hill should have known better. I hope their payoffs were worth it.