Toronto only Canadian city to make new Amazon hq shortlist

[james t kirk]

Since Amazon is located in Seattle currently, I'm betting they want to locate on the other coast.

I simply don't see them moving out of the USA.

Looking at Small Cock's list, I'm not so sure about this ready willing and able talent pool. If anything, right now, there is a huge shortage skilled technical labour. Though that's probably even worse in the USA.

But I would add that Engineers and technical people in Canada come far far cheaper in Canada than they do in the USA. So that would be a huge advantage for Toronto.

 

[great bear]

In Toronto SP's are legal. Toronto Wins!!

 

[Insidious Von]

IMHO Jeff Bezos would be a fool not to open HQ2 in Toronto. He has a choice to make; staying relevant or making America pink again.

Of the cities on the shortlist, only Boston is a rival. Toronto has two advantages: affordable health care and sensible gun laws. Bezos only has to look at how Toronto has reshaped the entertainment industry, it's now second only to Hollywood. Toronto has a vast reservoir of tech talent, from RIM refugees to relocated Indian and East Indies tech wizards. It's something Bezos would find hard to resist and Trump is not God...well maybe.

https://techvibes.com/2017/07/20/toronto-is-the-fastest-growing-tech-market-in-north-america

 

[Insidious Von]

Btw Facebook already has a head office in Toronto, Zuckerberg didn't advertise.

https://torontolife.com/style/home/facebook-canada-office-toronto-instagram/

 

[bver_hunter]

Amazon sales in Canada are really growing. As Amazon already have a location is the USA that they are currently shipping out of, the Toronto location makes a lot more sense. Many Canadians who have reservations about using Amazon due to the currency exchanges may want to do so if there is a local shipping site. Also, Toronto could be a major hub for their worldwide destinations. Remember that Toronto is the most diverse city in the world and it has the potential to increase the range of products with the demands from it's population. That is an advantage.

 

[explorerzip]

Amazon sales in Canada are really growing. As Amazon already have a location is the USA that they are currently shipping out of, the Toronto location makes a lot more sense. Many Canadians who have reservations about using Amazon due to the currency exchanges may want to do so if there is a local shipping site. Also, Toronto could be a major hub for their worldwide destinations. Remember that Toronto is the most diverse city in the world and it has the potential to increase the range of products with the demands from it's population. That is an advantage.

Amazon has had a Canadian web-site for many years so currency exchange is a non-issue unless you the item you want is only available on the US web-site. They also have multiple fulfillment centers around the GTA (one's in Mississauga) so shipping costs are also not much of a concern.

 

[saxon]

From what I’ve read Atlanta and Austin are considered the leading candidates.

 

[tml]

Bezos is cleverly playing each city against the others. Several cities in the States have already offered lucrative incentives to Amazon while Toronto has not.

 

[Occasionally]

Bezos is cleverly playing each city against the others. Several cities in the States have already offered lucrative incentives to Amazon while Toronto has not.

Personally, I think Bezos already knows which city he'll pick. All this back and forth is just bonus money and incentives.

The real giveaway is how fast Amazon builds it's HQ. If it takes tons of time to figure out things from the ground up, then it means it likely was an incentive that pushed to pick that city. If suddenly Bezos outlays the master plans in 2 seconds what and where he's going to do it, it means it's already been known and ready to go.

More importantly, all these cities offering incentives gives him information what cities will offer when he wants to build more Amazon offices and warehouses down the line whether it's HQ3 or smaller regional buildings.

More importantly, the cities showing their cards is good information for any other company Bezos has under his sleeve that he might plan to launch down the line, which we don't know about.

Even better, is that tech companies now know what kinds of deals cities will offer to large companies, since some of them have been public about it. It's a close knit circle of tech industry friends, so every buddy of his in similar shoes (large tech companies) is kissing his feet because Amazon has set the benchmark of government subsidies and outright freebies.

 

[PornAddict]

It's a long-shot but some pros and cons:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/how...other-cities-vying-for-amazon-s-hq2-1.3765552

PROS
The Canadian dollar: The loonie has been worth less than the U.S. dollar since February 2013 and is currently at about 80 cents US, giving an Toronto an edge in dollar-for-dollar labour cost comparisons with U.S. cities.

Health care: Canadian employers pay an average of 25 per cent of payroll to health care and benefits, compared with 37 per cent on average for U.S. employers. (Government statistics as of July 2017).


Skilled labour force: The Toronto bid claims more people working in computer, engineering and science than Washington, D.C., San Francisco or most other of its U.S. rivals. But New York City tops the list.

Money skills: The Toronto region claims more people working in business and financial operations than Chicago, Washington, D.C. or most of its American rivals. Again, Toronto trails only New York City.

Quality of life: Toronto was ranked 16th in Mercer's 2017 survey of world cities. The highest ranking for Toronto's remaining U.S. rivals was Boston, ranked 35th on Mercer's list.

Safety and security: Toronto was ranked fourth overall in Economist's 2017 global safe cities index, best of all North American cities. Toronto scored well on digital security, health security, infrastructure security and personal security.

CONS
Outside United States: Border crossings can be unpredictable for employees and each country has its own legal and regulatory frameworks, adding a layer of complexity.

Donald Trump: The U.S. president has been an outspoken and unpredictable force since he was elected in November 2017. The potential loss of an important job creator may provoke Trump.

Corporate taxes: While Canada and Ontario retain an edge in terms of corporate tax rates, their advantage has shrunk since Trump's recent success in slashing the U.S. corporate tax rate.

Real estate and rental prices: Toronto was recently ranked the most expensive city in Canada for rental apartments and has long been Canada's second-most expensive residential real estate.

CONS:
Minimum wages $14 hours moving toward $15 hours if liberal win or NDP win !
Extremely high electric bill!
Carbon taxes!!

 

[b4u]

Btw Facebook already has a head office in Toronto, Zuckerberg didn't advertise.

https://torontolife.com/style/home/facebook-canada-office-toronto-instagram/

Yep, plus we have Google building a high tech neighborhood Google firm wins competition to build high-tech Quayside neighbourhood in Toronto

 

[gltrotter]

Toronto would be an awesome choice for Amazon, particularly because it is outside the US. Unfortunately, I highly doubt Amazon would make such a bold move.

 

[Hugh G. Rekshun]

... Bombardier announced it is thinking of selling the Downsview location which would be an amazing opportunity for Amazon...

Bombardier has confirmed that they definitely intend to leave and sell the entire property, although I have seen no indication it may have anything to do with the proposed Amazon HQ2 (and any potential deals now presumably involve nondisclosure agreements). Would Amazon want to use and maintain their own 7000-foot runway? Otherwise, it's difficult to envision anyone needing all of an area that large for a single industrial project.
http://www.thestar.com/business/201...nvases-be-torontos-next-it-neighbourhood.html

... Bombardier, plans to sell its 152 hectares that adjoin Downsview Park ... to the east of Downsview Park includes an airplane manufacturing plant and a 2.1-km runway.

 

[PornAddict]

These 5 Cities Are The Amazon HQ2 Finalists, According To Bank of America


Two weeks ago, a surge in web queries https://terb.cc/vbulletin/showthrea...on+Employees+Unwittingly+Reveal+Location+HQ2? emanating from an internal Amazon.com page devoted to the company's HQ2 search, and focused on Arlington, VA hinted that the winner for the company's HQ2 location was already familiar to at least a small group of Amazon employees.



That said, Washington D.C. (and surrounding areas) winning the great HQ2 race would hardly be a major surprise: recently researchers at Hamilton Place Strategies, an analytic PR consultancy, crunched the numbers and tabulated that Washington, D.C. would be the most likely city to land Amazon’s massive second headquarters.

 

[PornAddict]

To be sure, for now Jeff Bezos has been tight lipped about his thought process, and all the 20 original cities listed by Amazon remain viable candidates... although Bank of America begs to differ.

In a report from cross-sector analyst, John Lovallo, the BofA strategist writes that the bank's Data Analytics team "has developed a dynamic model to narrow Amazon's current selection of 20 potential cities for its planned second headquarters (HQ2) to a short-list of five finalist prospective locations."

BofA explains that Amazon has listed certain requirements in choosing a second headquarters, which broadly encompass the city's financial strength, labor pool (size and education), cost of doing business, cost of living, transportation infrastructure and source of innovation. He then caveats that "Without specific guidance from Amazon, we have chosen to equally weight these factors (with the exception of source of innovation, due to limited input factors), but our selection could change if we were to weight certain criteria more highly."

Naturally, he then hedges:

While Amazon has stated requirements, weighting of these factors remains unclear, introducing a degree of art in our selection of possible HQ2 cities. Our analysis also focuses exclusively on the relative attractiveness of each potential market and thus does not contemplate availability or viability of specific sites for the actual headquarters

And with that disclaimer in place, BofA predicts that top five contender cities, listed alphabetically are:

Atlanta, GA,
Boston, MA,
Denver, CO,
Raleigh, NC
Washington D.C. (incl. Montgomery County, MD and Northern VA).

 

[PornAddict]

 

[PornAddict]

More notable is the detailed methodology of how BofA thinks Amazon will approach the selection process, and how it narrowed down the list to just 5 finalist cities. This is what BofA disclosed:

Our analysis assumes Amazon will build its next headquarters in a city that is similar to Seattle, while incorporating additional considerations such as affordable and reliable housing, business cost and commute. We utilize the results of two, equally-weighted methodologies to create a composite score.

Methodology #1

Our first approach isolated the cities that were most similar to Seattle. All parameters were normalized. A Euclidean distance* was calculated for each of the 17 cities relative to Seattle. These distances quantify the similarity between two cities by taking into account all the parameters like housing, business cost, commute etc. The smaller the Euclidean distance, the more similar a city was considered to be to Seattle. This approach resulted in the following top five candidates for Amazon's HQ2 (listed alphabetically):

Austin, TX
Boston, MA
Denver, CO
Los Angeles, CA
Washington D.C.**

Methodology #2

The second approach ranked the cities by each parameter/factor, determined by BofAML, in the model. The ranks were summarized within seven broader categories (financial, employment, education, business cost, housing, commute and innovation). For example, the sum of Tech occupation and Non-tech occupation's weighted ranks equates to the employment score. The score of each broad category was normalized and weighted*** to compute the final score. Lower scores in this approach imply less overall costs to Amazon for their second headquarters and are thus more favorable (listed alphabetically):

Atlanta, GA
Boston, MA
Pittsburgh, PA
Raleigh, NC
Washington D.C.**

 

[PornAddict]

 

[PornAddict]

Finally, assuming BofA's list of 5 companies is correct, here are the public stocks that stand to benefit the most from the potential pick:

Amazon estimates that the city of choice for its HQ2 will reap $5bn of investment from the company and experience roughly 50K new job openings. This would clearly be a boon to the local economy of the winning city and provide a tailwind for numerous companies within the surrounding area. We highlight the following potential stock beneficiaries (alphabetically) in Table 1 for each of the five cities in our Amazon HQ2 short-list.

 

[PornAddict]

Good .... look like Toronto will not get the Amazon Headquarters which is good!!!