Mark Walter
Another pillar of Chicago’s financial community is headed toward the exits — and apparently has quietly slashed its Chicago workforce in recent months.
Multiple industry sources report that Guggenheim Partners, an investment firm which has employed roughly 1,000 people in the West Loop, is on the verge of deciding to move its headquarters to Miami, the Florida city to which Citadel recently decamped.
Guggenheim is jointly headquartered in Chicago and New York. It is not known whether the New York headquarters also would shift south or how much the size of the Chicago office would be reduced.
But a source with direct knowledge of the pending move said top Guggenheim executives would be based in Miami, not Chicago or New York.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Guggenheim confirmed that the company has reduced its Chicago operation but did not directly comment on the headquarters shift.
"Guggenheim’s Chicago offices were closed in 2020 during COVID. No units, with the exception of one subsidiary, have reopened nor plan to reopen," the statement said. "A number of Guggenheim employees have relocated already. The one subsidiary in Chicago which is reopened plans to remain open."
The spokesperson would not comment on whether the headquarters was moved to Miami, which business unit remains in Chicago or how many are still working here. Guggenheim employs 900 in total, according to The Wall Street Journal.
But he did add that no workers in Chicago have been required to move. "There has been no downsizing in Chicago. People can and have been working from home or wherever they choose since the pandemic began."
Rumors that Guggenheim would shift its headquarters out of Chicago have been circulating for months, but picked up in volume and specificity in recent days, with a decision to go appearing imminent.
“I don’t think the decision is final yet,” said one knowledgeable official. “But I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Sources familiar with the matter say the decision appears to be prompted by relatively high tax rates here compared to Florida and to the same issue Citadel chief Ken Griffin cited: rising crime rates, especially downtown.
Guggenheim Partners, which native Iowan CEO Mark Walter helped form in the 1990s, has roots in Chicago. But as it grew and evolved, it expanded around the country, notably in New York, where it now employs more than it does in Chicago. It also has a growing Los Angeles office.
The firm has assets under management of about $300 billion, making it one of the largest money managers based in Chicago.
But — unlike Griffin and Citadel, which trumpeted its headquarters move to Miami last year as a reaction to Chicago’s public safety struggles — Guggenheim mainly has kept its profile low for a company its size.
Billionaire Walter is best known, perhaps, as one of the largest shareholders of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He’s also teamed up for business ventures with professional basketball legend Magic Johnson.
Walter and Johnson combined to move the headquarters of EquiTrust Life Insurance, a company Guggenheim acquired more than a decade ago, to Chicago from the suburbs of Des Moines, Iowa, in 2014. The deal was celebrated by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel, whose administration focused heavily on recruiting out-of-town companies to relocate to Chicago, whether based out of state or in the city's suburbs.
Walter has been involved in Chicago's civic life, serving on the Field Museum board. His wife, Kimbra, sits on the Lincoln Park Zoo board and is heavily involved in that institution.
