PulteGroup, one of the nation’s biggest homebuilders, plans to move its headquarters from the Detroit suburbs to the city of Atlanta, The Wall Street Journal first reported and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has confirmed.
An individual with knowledge of the matter told the AJC that PulteGroup plans to move more than 300 highly paid workers, including its top executives, to an as yet undetermined office building, likely in Buckhead. The individual said the company is eyeing several locations in that part of the city.
Asked about the company’s possible move, PulteGroup spokesman James Zeumer emailed the AJC that, “As a policy, we don’t comment on rumor and speculation related to our business operations.”
The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed people briefed on the matter, said the company’s board approved the move Thursday.
PulteGroup chairman and chief executive Richard Dugas formerly was head of a company division based in Atlanta.
PulteGroup, based in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., suffered a major blow during the housing downturn, but its financial picture has brightened more recently.
It acquired Centex Corporation in 2009, bringing together two of the nation’s largest homebuilders with operations in nearly 30 states. Still, the homebuilding sector is deeply fragmented. Though one of the nation’s biggest builders, PulteGroup produced only about 5 percent of the new U.S. homes sold last year. Among the company’s brands are Centex, Pulte Homes and Del Webb.
The company had revenues of $4.82 billion last year, up from the year before, but still off the $6.26 billion it notched in 2008. Last year it turned its first annual profit in at least five years. PulteGroup had more than 3,600 employees at the end of last year, according to its latest annual report.
PulteGroup’s move would be another in a string of potential job wins for the city of Atlanta, which in years past had seen a trend of major companies moving out of in-town locations. Among brighter signs for the city: Coke recently has considered moving hundreds of jobs into downtown from a suburban Cobb County office park.
—Staff writer Alexis Stevens contributed to this report.
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