Credit Suisse sells RTP land

tool name

tool name

Credit Suisse sells some RTP land

Investment banking giant Credit Suisse has sold back about half its land in Research Triangle Park after concluding that it has ample room for expansion in its facility.

"We can probably add another 450 people in the building," Jim Captain, site executive for the Swiss company, said Friday. Credit Suisse has 950 full-time workers - a combination of employees and contractors - in its 211,000-square-foot building in RTP.

The company has sold back about 35 acres of undeveloped land plus designated "natural space" to the Research Triangle Foundation, which runs RTP. The selling price of roughly $3.2 million is the same price, on a per-acrebasis, that Credit Suisse originally paid.

Credit Suisse to hire 300

Investment banking giant Credit Suisse plans to hire about 300 additional workers in Research Triangle Park next year to support its growing business.

"Raleigh is an integral part of our growth strategy, because of the labor force that is available to us here," said Jim Captain, site executive for the Swiss company.

The company's expansion plans will boost its local work force by nearly a third. It currently has about 1,000 full-time workers, both employees and contractors.

RTP's vacancy rate hits 27%

When cell phone maker Sony Ericsson announced last week that it will shut down its Research Triangle Park operations within a year, it became the latest high-profile tenant to reduce its presence in the region's signature industrial park.

Sony Ericsson's departure was not entirely unexpected - the company has struggled for years to compete in the global handset market - but the news only added to the pain being inflicted on RTP by this recession.

The office vacancy rate in RTP, including available sublease space, stood at 27.2percent in the third quarter, according to the Raleigh research firm Grubb & Ellis/Thomas Linderman Graham. That's up 34 percent from the same period last year and the highest it has been since the tech bubble burst, which caused RTP's vacancy rate to top 30 percent in 2003.

Credit Suisse hiring 300 workers

Investment banking giant Credit Suisse said today that it plans to hire about 300 new workers at its Research Triangle Park facility, a move that will expand its work force by nearly one-third.

"We're seeing positive growth at Credit Suisse," said Michael Misner, a spokesman for the Swiss-based firm. "We are a very well-capitalized bank. The [economic] crisis created opportunities based on our strong capital base."

Hiring is beginning immediately for information technology, operations, accounting and administrative positions, said Misner. He declined to disclose salaries but said that Credit Suisse pays above-average wages.

Fidelity enjoys the catbird seat

Good things come to those who wait, as Fidelity Investments may be learning.

Three years ago, executives with the Boston financial services company said it would hire 2,000 people in the Triangle and fit them in a shiny new campus in Research Triangle Park by the end of 2009.

Fidelity has come close to meeting its hiring goals. But even after paying at least $19.4 million for 269 undeveloped acres in the southern half of RTP, the company hasn't built anything.