BY KEITH BENMAN, Times of Northwest Indiana
kbenman@nwitimes.com
MERRILLVILLE | Reports that NiSource Inc. is close to selling its NIPSCO electric business are again raising fears that the Fortune 500 company could move its Merrillville corporate headquarters to another state.
With former Dune Acres resident Gary Neale out as CEO and chairman, and with a sale looming, it may be only a matter of time before NiSource transfers headquarters operations to Columbus, Ohio, said Jim Blythe, president of United Steelworkers Local 12775.
"But I would also think (state) regulators would be sensitive to losing something of that size," Blythe said.
Columbia Gas of Ohio, headquartered in Columbus, is NiSource's largest natural gas utility, with 1.4 million customers.
NiSource is the only Fortune 500 company headquartered in Northwest Indiana and one of only five with corporate headquarters in Indiana.
NiSource's top two executives, CEO Robert Skaggs Jr. and Chief Financial Officer Michael O'Donnell, both came to NiSource from the former Columbia Energy Group, which was swallowed by NiSource in 2001.
Neale stepped down as chairman in November, and he retired as CEO in July 2005.
NiSource and NIPSCO employ 650 people in the sprawling headquarters building at 801 E. 86th Ave., said Kris Falzone, NiSource spokeswoman. It overlooks a small pond and Interstate 65 beyond. The NIPSCO customer call center is located there, as are NiSource corporate offices.
If NIPSCO's electric business is split off, union officials fear some call center jobs could be lost to a consolidated NiSource call center in Pennsylvania.
In December 2005, NiSource put the much smaller NIPSCO headquarters at 800 E. 86th Ave. up for sale.
As part of a rate settlement reached with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission in 2002, NIPSCO pledged to keep its corporate headquarters in Northwest Indiana.
The agreement to keep company headquarters here expired in September 2006, according to Mary Beth Fisher, an IURC spokeswoman.
NiSource basically used the threat of moving NIPSCO or its own headquarters to gain leverage in the 2002 rate negotiations, according to Dave Menzer, an organizer for the Citizens Action Coalition.
"Obviously, Columbia is largely in Ohio, and they have a lot to the east of there," Menzer said. "They could argue they want to move it where their biggest customer base is."
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