Charlotte retirement firm to expand, add 300 jobs for $3.7 million in incentives
Retirement Clearinghouse, a firm that helps manage retirement plans, will hire 300 people in Mecklenburg County over five years and spend more than $4.1 million to expand its headquarters and corporate office in Charlotte, Gov. Roy Cooper’s office announced Tuesday.
The firm, headquartered south of Charlotte Douglas International Airport, also considered York and Lancaster counties in South Carolina for its expansion, according to the state’s economic investment committee.
Charlotte won out, though, in part by a grant from the committee approved Tuesday.
The grant would pay Retirement Clearinghouse up to nearly $3.3 million over 12 years if the firm meets hiring and investment goals. In total, the company was offered $3.7 million in incentives from the city of Charlotte and the state.
South Carolina offered between $13.6 and $16.7 million in incentives, according to the North Carolina investment committee.
“At the end of the day, the North Carolina program with the state, the city and the county was just a perfect fit for our expansion plans,” said CEO Spencer Williams in an interview.
Retirement Clearinghouse helps rollover retirement plans, like 401(k)s, to new employers when people change jobs. The company’s majority owner is Robert Johnson, former owner of the Charlotte Bobcats and founder of Black Entertainment Television.
Other expansions
The expansion will grow the company five-fold from its current size of 60 employees.
Recent guidance from the Department of Labor on auto-portability, the automatic transfer of a retirement account from a former employer to a new employer, paved the way for many financial institutions to use the practice and for Retirement Clearinghouse to expand.
Next year, the company will move from its current office to a larger space in Ayrsley.
The new jobs will be in a range of positions, including information technology and call center roles. The minimum average wage of the jobs will be $65,946.
The announcement continues the state’s trend of attracting companies, including those already based in North Carolina, to expand in the area with incentives.
In 2018, LendingTree, the loan marketplace headquartered in Charlotte, was granted up to $8.37 million in state incentives to add 436 high-paying jobs over five years.
And earlier this year, Centene, a large St. Louis-based health insurance firm, was lured with up to $450 million in incentives to bring over 3,200 jobs to Charlotte.
‘A believer’
When first thinking about the expansion in February, Williams hadn’t initially considered pursuing incentives until his chief operating officer and a real estate broker told him the firm might be eligible. He was skeptical, but not opposed to found money.
South Carolina’s pitch, while larger in dollar figures, was more focused on manufacturing and capital investment, while the North Carolina plan fit more with the workforce expansion he had planned.
“I was turned from a skeptic into a believer,” Williams said.
This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 1:13 PM.