Johnson Controls About To Leave Wisconsin?

Breaking news from JSOnline says Johnson Controls is about to merge with Ireland’s Tyco International. Tyco is a fire protection and security company. Although the article says that local miscreant and current CEO of Johnson Controls, Alex Molinaroli, will run the new combined company, will JCI’s legal headquarters end up in Ireland for tax purposes? Will they be the largest example of the Wisconsin business loss trend that Governor Walker’s ‘Open for Business’ policy has become?

Wisconsin’s largest public company, Johnson Controls Inc., is in advanced talks to merge with Ireland-based fire protection and security company Tyco International, according to a report Sunday by the Wall Street Journal.

Citing people familiar with the talks, the business publication said a deal could be announced as soon as Monday.

Financial terms of the potential transaction aren’t known.

Alex Molinaroli, chief executive of Johnson Controls, would be expected to run the combined company, the newspaper reported.

Update 1/15/2016 6:18 PM Some of you are getting a bit carried away. I never suggested that JCI would move their manufacturing jobs and overall operations out of Milwaukee. The gist of the post was that JCI would use Ireland as their legal corporate HQ and do a ‘tax inversion’ to avoid taxes. And I got ragged on over on Facebook for wild speculation last night…when the actual announcement actually bore out my supposition. Go figure

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5 thoughts on “Johnson Controls About To Leave Wisconsin?

  1. I really hope it doesn’t develop like that, but the past couple years haven’t given many of us much confidence in the state’s ability to retain good blue collar jobs.

    1. I don’t really anticipate JCI moving any manufacturing out of Wisconsin as a result of this merger. The speculation is around merging with a foreign corporation which would let them nominally move their HQ overseas and avoid paying corporate taxes in the US. This type of ‘tax inversion’ has become fairly popular over the past 4 or 5 years. Walgreen’s considered doing it a few years ago and apparently abandoned the idea because of bad press around the idea.

      1. Good point. Obama has called for end to inversions, and both GOP and Dems acknowledge it is a major problem and “unpatriotic.” Yet Congress refuses to act, go figure.

  2. More of the same under the Walker regime?

    “…,In 2015,roughly 10,000 hard working Wisconsinites received layoff notices, the highest single -year total since the governor took office. Wisconsin still ranks in the bottom third for job growth and worst in the Midwest, and our middle class is shrinking faster than in any other state…”

    http://host.madison.com/ct/opinion/column/rep-peter-barca-under-scott-walker-wisconsin-is-falling-behind/article_76604e29-31eb-5db3-9ecc-ec23fd4c8bcb.html#utm_source=host.madison.com&utm_campaign=%2Femail%2Fcaptimes_news%2F&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline

    I would re-title the headline: “SCOTT WALKER NEEDS TO FIX HIS BEHIND.”

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