Pittsburgh About to Lose FreeMarkets

FreeMarkets, Pittsburgh's rising star of the Internet age, is being acquired by a company from California's Silicon Valley for $493 million in stock and cash. The deal will cost Pittsburgh another corporate headquarters and an undetermined number of jobs, although executives of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Ariba Inc. and FreeMarkets pledged to maintain a significant presence in the city. FreeMarkets houses about 650 employees in a Downtown office tower bearing its name. The merged company will retain the Ariba name and be based in Sunnyvale.

Reacting to the deal, Ronnie L. Bryant, president of the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, the region's leading economic development agency, said, "We are in the process of getting as much information as possible from FreeMarkets about their plans. We will be working to do everything possible to protect as many FreeMarkets' jobs as we can."

This is a tough situation for Pittsburgh. Sorry to hear it. This situation is a perfect illustration of what I have been saying why eocnomic developers must devise a better way to deal with mergers and acquisitions and other business strategies that are undermining all thr hardwork by local economic development work. We are far from ready.

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