More is less when buyouts occur
The sale of Mentor to Johnson & Johnson, announced earlier this month, punctuates the need for a bigger conversation about economic development in the Tri-Counties.
That’s because we are increasingly losing our middle class of companies and relying more and more on risky startups for job growth.
True, J&J — like Allergan, Citrix, Teledyne, Raytheon and others — may elect to keep or grow its tri-county operations after making a local acquisition. And it may be a great corporate citizen.
But what goes away when a company gets sold is a local banking relationship as well as relationships with local law firms, accountants and others. The region has proved itself to be well suited to producing small, emerging companies. But growing larger enterprises has proved difficult and that’s the real rub for our economy going forward.
