Convenient travel to company hubs was a Dallas ‘selling point’ for the Pittsburgh transplant.
Allegheny Technologies Inc. first chased after Pittsburgh steel. Now the specialty metals company is relocating to North Texas in pursuit of key flight, defense and oil industry players.
Aerospace materials firm Allegheny Technologies Inc. is moving its headquarters from Pittsburgh to Dallas and changing its name to ATI Inc., according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Wednesday.
Last September, Allegheny Technologies leased more than 15,000 square feet of office space in the McKinney & Olive high-rise on McKinney Avenue north of downtown Dallas. That Uptown office space is now ATI’s headquarters.
CEO Robert Wetherbee and his direct reports are based in Dallas and the company will add positions in the city as appropriate, ATI spokeswoman Natalie Gillespie said. Ease of travel to ATI’s production hubs was a factor in the move.
“Convenient travel to our hubs in Wisconsin, Oregon, North Carolina and Pennsylvania was definitely a selling point of Dallas,” Gillespie said in an email.
Specializing in materials and solutions for aircraft, defense and oil and gas industries, the company generated $2.8 billion in revenue in 2021. Aerospace and defense industry products accounted for more than 40% of sales, with commercial jet engine components leading the pack.
The company said in a regulatory filing that it expects continued growth in these industries with travel demand recovering after the COVID-19 pandemic. Signaling flight industry recovery, DFW International Airport surpassed its 2019 pre-pandemic records for international passengers in April.
Gillespie said the move was not related to income taxes.
Designating Texas as its new headquarters could save ATI Inc. millions in corporate income taxes, levied at a statewide rate of 9.99% in Pennsylvania. That’s the second highest rate in the U.S. Texas is among a handful of states with no corporate income tax.
Although the company reported a $1.6 billion loss in 2020 and a $38.2 million loss in 2021, it reported a $35 million profit in the first three months of this year.
Coinciding with the relocation, ATI Inc. has swiftly updated its name and its email address, website and social media handles to ATImaterials.com.
The rebranding removes ties to the Allegheny River that runs through Pittsburgh. It also matches the company’s longtime New York Stock Exchange symbol.
“We’ve dropped ‘Allegheny Technologies Incorporated’ to go by what most already call us: ATI,” Gillespie said.
The company’s regulatory filing said the name change is designed to “better reflect its focus on producing high performance, highly specialized materials.”
While C-suite employees are based in Dallas, other employees will stay in Pennsylvania.
ATI Inc. told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that none of its 1,500 employees who work in nine facilities in Western Pennsylvania will relocate to Dallas.
The former corporate headquarters will also remain part of the company as ATI’s Enterprise Resource Center. Located at Six PPG Place in downtown Pittsburgh, the research center is slated to move to a new building in the city’s Strip District.
Earlier this month, Caterpillar Inc. said it’s relocating its corporate headquarters from suburban Chicago to Irving, where it has about 120 employees now. The company said its 230 corporate workers would begin moving to Texas this year.
