The United Technologies Corporation has announced Thursday afternoon that it will move its headquarters from Hartford to Farmington, while it also seeks to split with its Sikorsky aircraft division, most famous for manufacturing Black Hawk helicopters.
UTC will move its headquarters from the Gold Building in downtown Hartford, Connecticut to its campus in Farmington, New Mexico, expecting to save over $100 million from cheaper rent prices and taxes to basic corporate expenses. Preparations for the move have started since 2013, with employees steadily being reassigned to the Farmington HQ.
UTC headquarters were based in Hartford since the 1970’s, shortly after it changed its name from United Aircraft to signify its expansion into multiple technological domains beyond aerospace.
The tech giant also announced its intention to either sell or release its Sikorsky Aircraft unit, responsible for helicopter manufacturing, and most famously known for building the Black Hawk helicopter widely used by the US Army since the 1970’s.
Sikorsky Aircraft has been a part of United Technologies or United Aircraft continuously since 1929, two years after being founded by Russian-American pioneer Igor Sikorsky. The company has become the least profitable of those owned by UTC, and releasing it might offer some more financial flexibility to the corporation. Sikorsky’s revenue depends mostly on the U.S. Military’s need for Black Hawk helicopters, which is inconsistent to say the least.
Sikorsky is valued at about $8 billion, and the company has been delving recently into the possibility of selling it, contacting potential buyers since the start of 2015, but experts say a full release of the company might be more probable at this point.
UTC may look to replace it with one or two more profitable companies, having amassed more than $5 billion at the end of 2014, two years after its historical $16 billion of purchase of aerospace company Goodrich. But CEO Gregory Hayes also stated that he was looking at purchases well above that number.
These are the first big moves the company has announced since it elected Hayes as its new president, CEO and director in November 2015. As result of the announcement, UTC shares at the New York stock market have gone up by more than two percent Thursday afternoon.
Image Source: Airliners.net
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