Chicagoans are abuzz about the possibility that the Wrigley name could be erased from one of their oldest institutions. But they are more likely to be thinking about Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, than the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co.
Cubs fans have griped that Sam Zell, who led the recent buyout of Wrigley Field owner Tribune Co., might rename the ballpark if a corporate sponsor pays for the rights. But the proposed merger between the 117-year-old gum giant and Mars Inc. isn't likely to have a significant effect on the nation's third-largest metropolitan economy, experts say.
At a news conference in Chicago on Monday, Wrigley Chairman William Wrigley Jr. declined to comment on what the Mars deal could mean for the ballpark, but said, "the Wrigley family loves the fact that the name's on the field."
If the Mars deal is completed, the Wrigley company will become a stand-alone entity within Mars, retaining its name and its signature downtown headquarters overlooking the Chicago River.
Mr. Wrigley said the company will continue its civic and philanthropic involvement in the city, and Wrigley's 16,000 employees shouldn't expect big changes. "We might actually be adding some people to the Chicago base," he said.
Wrigley shuttered a chewing-gum manufacturing plant in the city in late 2006. That came shortly after the company opened a research and development center, subsidized by millions of dollars in city and state money, on Chicago's north side. The shift reflects the broader Chicago economy's own evolution from one based largely on manufacturing to one that relies on a large swath of legal, marketing, financial and other service jobs.
In the last two decades, the city has lost many high-profile corporate headquarters to acquisitions and mergers, including Quaker Oats, Bank One and Amoco Corp., but other companies have chosen to move their base to Chicago, including Boeing Co., which arrived in the early 2000s.
"Overall the city is doing very well," said Edward Snyder, dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.
William Fruth, founder and owner of Policom Corp., an independent research firm based in Palm City, Fla., ranks Chicago ninth out of 363 metropolitan areas in the U.S. for overall economic strength.
"Anytime there is a loss of a headquarters or a manufacturing company it will negatively impact a local economy but the Chicago economy is so large the impact will likely be absorbed," Mr. Fruth said.
*Therefore, despite these manufacturing losses, Chicago still remains a highly desirable city, in which many live in downtown Chicago apartments.
The Wrigley company, founded in 1891, joined a booming confectionary industry around Chicago. By the 1920s Chicago was a national center for confectioners and was exporting its candy and gum around the world.
The Wrigley headquarters, a 30-story French-Renaissance-inspired stone structure that was once one of the city's tallest buildings, anchors the Magnificent Mile shopping strip. In 1920, the company founder bought the Chicago Cubs, and later their ballpark became Wrigley Field.
By: Ilan Brat & Douglas Belkin
Wall Street Journal; April 29, 2008
