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Swiss cities compete for Hitachi headquarters

Swiss cities compete for Hitachi headquarters

Tokyo (SCCIJ) – After Hitachi announced to buy ABB’s power grid business at the end of 2018, two Swiss cities were hoping to benefit from the Japanese move. “Baden im Aargau”, home of ABB’s headquarters for Switzerland, and Zurich, the base of ABB’s global headquarters. After the recent completion of the deal, Zurich has won the tender. Baden is not giving up its hope, though, for good reasons.

Swiss cities compete for Hitachi headquarters

ABB’s transformers have now become assets of the joint venture with Hitachi which started its operation on July 1 (© ABB).

Local jobs saved

The die is cast: The global headquarters of Hitachi’s joint venture with ABB is located in Zurich-Oerlikon at Brown-Boveri-Strasse 1, whereas the Swiss national organization of Hitachi ABB Power Grids has chosen the “Power Tower” on Bruggerstrasse in Baden as its site. However, no employees of the power grid division are transferred from Baden to Zurich.

Mayor Markus Schneider told a Swiss regional newspaper that the decision has preserved jobs in Baden. But some local politicians are still counting on a reversal of fate since a spokesperson of the ABB Hitachi joint venture qualified the location decision as “until further notice”.

A politician’s campaign

For example, Thierry Burkart, FDP Councilor from Baden, is still campaigning for a relocation. Hitachi may reassess the situation after two, three years, he told the Swiss paper. Burkart, who is also the vice president of the parliamentary friendship group between Switzerland and Japan, had supported his home town’s wish to become the location of the global headquarters of the joint venture, together with the Aargau government council.

In his efforts, Burkart stayed in close contact with the Japanese Embassy in Bern. In January, he spontaneously traveled to Davos to the World Economic Forum to meet with the Chairman of the Hitachi Board of Directors. His expectations of a decision reversal are built on the fact that Hitachi only owns 80.1 percent of ABB’s power grid business. ABB still holds the other 19.9 percent.

A chance for reversal

The Japanese giant has already announced that it may acquire the remaining stake of Hitachi ABB Power Grids after 2023. After such a step, it may make sense for Hitachi to separate its wholly-owned subsidiary from the original parent ABB also in terms of the geographic location, but not too far away from the current site to keep its trusted employees.

In such a scenario, Baden could become the choice of the day due to having some assets Hitachi might find attractive. Among them are a cluster of energy companies, the proximity to world-class research organizations, such as the Paul Scherer Institute in Villigen, as well as the convenient transport links to the airport and Zurich, Bern, and Basel.

Social innovation driver

The newly established joint venture Hitachi ABB Power Grids is the world leader in power supply systems and started its operation on July 1. It employs about 2,900 people throughout Switzerland. The whole new company with its workforce of 36,000 operates in 90 countries and generates sales of about 10 billion euros.

Under the leadership of Claudio Facchin as CEO and Toshikazu Nishino, Executive Vice President of Hitachi, as Chairman, Hitachi ABB Power Grids plans to expand Hitachi’s energy solutions business globally as a core part of its social innovation business division. The joint venture features the business idea to combine world-class power grids with Hitachi’s advanced digital technologies.

Text: Martin Fritz for SCCIJ

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