AAPL Apple Inc

By Tripp Mickle and Valerie Bauerlein 

RALEIGH, N.C. -- The world's two most valuable technology companies -- Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. -- are shopping for cities in which to build new corporate campuses. But with one of them, you would hardly know it.

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook this month met secretly with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper to discuss possibly putting a major new customer-service facility in the Raleigh-Durham area, according to a person familiar with the meeting. The undisclosed meeting was tucked into a very public agenda that included delivering Duke University's commencement address, tweeting from Duke's basketball stadium and taking selfies with shoppers at an Apple Store.

The secrecy of Apple's effort contrasts starkly with Amazon's approach. While Amazon's effort to find a second headquarters city has proceeded with the fanfare of an Olympics host-city search, Apple is hunting for its newest U.S. location with the stealthy deliberateness it employs in developing a new iPhone.

Since it announced plans in January for the new campus to house technical support staff, Apple has said little about the effort. Mr. Cook has limited his public comments, saying during a March TV interview only that Apple wouldn't be discussing its search because it doesn't believe in the "beauty contest" approach.

An Amazon-like competition creates "a case where you have one winner and a bunch of losers," he said, while Apple's process is designed to avoid "putting people through a ton of work to select one" city. "The best things we can do in business is find the win-win," the Apple CEO said.

Apple's approach has advantages, says Jay Biggins, executive managing director at Biggins Lacy Shapiro & Co., a corporate location strategy firm. By limiting publicity, companies can exert more control over the process, avoid being overrun with outreach from cities and focus negotiations to get more of what they want, he says.

The confidential search is more conventional. Mr. Biggins estimates that more than 90% of companies place new campuses or relocate existing headquarters without saying where they are looking, and most don't even say they are looking.

Amazon announced in September it was seeking a location for a second headquarters, dubbed HQ2, that the online giant says could bring nearly 50,000 jobs and more than $5 billion in investment over nearly two decades. Its detailed list of criteria drew 238 applicants, which it narrowed to 20 cities in January, including Raleigh, Atlanta and three in the Washington, D.C., area. Amazon is expected to announce its selection later this year.

Amazon said it wanted a public process "to find a city that is excited to work with us and where our customers, employees and the community can all benefit."

Amazon's approach may "work competitive spirits into a real lather," Mr. Biggins said, but it can trigger clashes within communities over incentives or a blame game if a city is eliminated. "It became a bit of a circus for many communities," he said.

However, Amazon's approach also allows it to collect data and cultivate relationships that it can use for future projects such as fulfillment or data centers, said Didi Caldwell, founding principal of Global Location Strategies, a Greenville, S.C., firm. Amazon has also been more transparent with communities than other companies, providing them with a clear outline of what the company wants, wrote K.C. Conway, director of research and corporate engagement at the Alabama Center for Real Estate.

Apple, which also plans to announce its choice this year, hasn't said how many employees its new facility will host. Nor has it said where it is looking, except that it won't be California, where its new space-age headquarters houses some 12,000 workers, or Texas, where it has its second-biggest campus in Austin, with more than 6,000 employees. Apple also has data centers in Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona and North Carolina.

Local governments haven't spoken publicly about discussions with Apple, although North Carolina legislators on Thursday announced changes to the state's incentives package targeting technology companies that pledge to invest at least $1 billion in the state and create at least 3,000 jobs.

Apple representatives also have spoken with officials in Virginia about options near Washington, D.C., the Washington Post reported last week.

Apple and Virginia officials declined to comment.

Planning a new corporate location is essentially a procurement process where companies try to get cities and states to offer tax incentives, cash and land, consultants say. Few are better equipped to manage that than Mr. Cook, Apple's former chief operating officer, Mr. Biggins said.

Apple was deliberate when it worked with Austin, Texas, officials on a 2012 plan to double the size of its operation there, said Matt Curtis, who worked in the mayor's office at the time and now runs Smart City Policy Group, a government advisory firm. The company worked with the chamber of commerce and city and state officials on an agreement. The state committed to invest $21 million over 10 years toward a $304 million campus that would double Apple's local workforce.

Apple told Austin officials it also was considering Phoenix, said Brian Gildea, who worked on Austin's economic development team. But he said Apple always treated Austin as the front-runner and negotiations were amicable.

Apple has had operations in North Carolina since at least 2009 when it announced plans to build a $1 billion data center in Maiden, northwest of Charlotte.

Top executives also have strong ties there. Mr. Cook graduated from Duke's business school, and Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, who grew up in the Raleigh area, and senior vice president Eddy Cue also attended Duke.

Northern Virginia could be attractive to both Apple and Amazon given its deep pool of talent, strong fiber network, and proximity to political leaders, location experts said.

"There are probably regulations on the horizon for tech, and I think those companies want to be there to influence them, so they are smart regulations," Ms. Caldwell said.

Write to Tripp Mickle at Tripp.Mickle@wsj.com and Valerie Bauerlein at valerie.bauerlein@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 23, 2018 05:44 ET (09:44 GMT)

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