Skydance is officially L.A.’s newest Fortune 500 company — but for how long?
In a message to employees last week, CEO David Ellison said he is committed to keeping the company in Hollywood: “We aren’t going anywhere.”
But the consent decree between Ellison and 12 state attorneys general does not require him to maintain a headquarters in Los Angeles. And the last two months have proven that the threat to leave can provide powerful leverage should Ellison need anything from state government in the future.
“I think our attorney general and all of us were in a no-win situation when you had a company that seemed very willing and able to move out of California,” Rep. Laura Friedman told NBC LA. “I personally don’t believe that was an idle threat, and if that had happened, that would be devastating for Los Angeles.”
Los Angeles has lost a series of corporate headquarters over the last 15 years, including Northrop Grumman, Occidental Petroleum, Toyota Motor North America, AECOM, SpaceX, Public Storage and KB Home. Companies often cite California’s high cost of living, taxes, and hostile regulatory environment in explaining their decisions to leave for Texas or some other state.
“It’s a parade of horribles,” said Larry Kosmont, whose real estate advisory firm has long studied the cost of doing business in California. “If you had to fill a prescription for corporations leaving, California would get an A on the exam.”
California leaders are also vulnerable to the charge that they have allowed companies to flee by failing to reform business regulations.
“Other states have improved in measures of tax and regulatory burden. California hasn’t improved,” said Sarah Bohn, vice president at the Public Policy Institute of California, who has found that corporate flight is indeed increasing. “The trend is not going in the direction you would want it to go.”
In that context, losing Paramount would have been a powerful symbol, even if all that moved was a small corporate office. And that threat — even if Ellison has no need for it at the moment — remains available in the future.
Under the agreement with the state AGs, Skydance will not sell either the Paramount or the Warner Bros. lots for at least five years. The deal also provides for increased production volume. The question of where the company will be headquartered was not included in the agreement, though it appears to have been discussed.
“I believe that the future of this merged company is in Los Angeles for the foreseeable future,” said Attorney General Rob Bonta, in announcing the consent decree last week.
Ellison’s commitment, however, comes after he made a similar pledge and then went back on it in response to Bonta’s antitrust suit. In a letter to Friedman and Sen. Adam Schiff in February, Ellison vowed that the combined company would “stay true to our roots” in Southern California.
The issue of what more must be done to keep film and TV jobs in L.A. remains a live one, both at the federal and state level. Congress is considering a U.S. incentive, while California lawmakers are expected to take up the question next year of whether to eliminate the $750 million cap on the state’s incentive, and whether to modify the program to include above-the-line costs.
“We’ve got to fight to keep Hollywood in Hollywood,” said Xavier Becerra, the Democratic nominee for governor, in a CNN debate this week. “And I’ve said I’ll do everything I can to make sure that happens.”