Travelers Companies Inc. has cut another tie to St. Paul.
Travelers cuts another tie to St. Paul
Two years after dropping St. Paul from its name, Travelers has moved its executive offices to New York.
March 12, 2009 at 5:26AM
The insurance giant disclosed in a securities filing last month that its principal executive offices are now on Lexington Avenue in New York, rather than in downtown St. Paul.
The move comes two years after what was once known as St. Paul Travelers decided to drop St. Paul from its name -- a part of the company since its founding in 1853 -- because it believed the Travelers brand was more widely recognized.
However, a company spokesman cautioned against reading too much into the changes. When asked if the relocation of the executive offices would result in layoffs or a closing of the St. Paul office, spokesman Shane Boyd replied, "No, no, no. Unequivocally, it will not."
The change, first reported in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, was made to reflect the fact that Travelers CEO Jay Fishman was spending most of his time in New York, Boyd said. It does not reflect any organizational changes, and Travelers still has some of its primary business units and departments in St. Paul, including finance and accounting, underwriting, human resources and fixed-income investments, he noted. The company remains incorporated in Minnesota.
Travelers has 2,500 people in downtown St. Paul. That's down from 2,700 at the time of the October 2004 merger between the St. Paul Companies and Travelers Property Casualty Corp. The company employs about 7,000 people in Hartford, Conn., and 750 in New York.
Fishman continues to maintain an office on the top floor of the Travelers Building at 385 Washington St. in St. Paul. And he still owns a luxury townhouse in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, which he bought in 2002 for $655,000. The townhouse was recently valued at $831,800, according to Hennepin County property tax records.
There is no record that he has sold the townhouse, and the company spokesman declined to comment on Fishman's plans for the residence.
As for its "official headquarters," Travelers claims not to have one. Instead, the company has executive offices and administrative functions spread among three offices -- New York, St. Paul and Hartford. "We're not about one location," Boyd said. "We're too decentralized."
Chris Serres • 612-673-4308
Stadium Capital, the largest shareholder, had been pushing for management and board changes at Minneapolis-based smart-bed maker.
