Tyco Opts for Garden State Location for HQ

The location will combine existing corporate operations in New York City, Boca Raton, FL and Bermuda, with approximately 300 jobs involved, according to Tyco spokesman Gary Holmes. The move is expected to take place sometime this summer.

The transaction is actually a sublease from Merrill Lynch, which leases the entire 300,000-sf complex on a long-term basis, but uses very little of the space. The five-story building at 9 Roszel Rd. totals 190,000 sf (its smaller companion building, 7 Roszel Rd., makes up the rest), but Tyco officials have not disclosed exactly how much space the company will utilize or any other details of the transaction. Officials of SJP Properties declined to comment on the Tyco announcement.

One detail that was revealed is that Tyco will get a package of $13.2 million in state incentives for bringing more than 300 jobs to town. An earlier application for New Jersey EDA incentives was tossed out by the administration of Gov. James McGreevey because of pending legal action by the state against the company relating to state pension fund losses, but officials did not disclose how that issue had been overcome.

The move, which will save Tyco a substantial amount of money in reduced rent, is part of the effort by current management, headed by new CEO Edward Breen, to reorganize and streamline a company battered by the accounting-, compensation- and stock-related misdeeds of previous management. Coincidentally, the headquarters move announcement comes just as company officials admitted that past accounting problems could cost shareholders as much as another $1 billion.

Tyco, which generates more than $35 billion in revenues annually and has more than 265,000 employees around the world, is the holding company for such well-known industrial brands as Tyco Electronics, AMP, ADT, Sensormatic, Mallinckrodt, Nashua and Grinnell, among others. Job-cutting and plant closings are also part of the company's ongoing effort to reorganize itself.