GE Sets Target Date For Relocation Decision

General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt plans to decide where the company will call home by the end of the year.

GE has been weighing its options about relocating from its Fairfield headquarters ever since Immelt expressed frustration over Connecticut’s new business tax increases in June.

Immelt told CNBC on Thursday that a committee is reviewing its options and the company is taking the decision very seriously.

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“We’ve been there for 40 years, so we would never do anything like this carelessly or casually,’’ Immelt said during the TV interview, via the Hartford Courant. “It’s the kind of thing you only think about every 40 years. You want to make sure you get it right.’’

Immelt gave an indirect answer when asked if GE would move out of Connecticut, saying:

“You want to be someplace where people support job creation, where it’s attractive to talent, good cost of living, and that is very supportive of what a high-tech exporter has to be all about. It is a global battle that we are in, and we need people who are on our side.”

Suitors have lined up for GE ever since Immelt sent an email to the company’s Connecticut employees in June, notifying them that he has “assembled an exploratory team to look into the company’s options to relocate corporate HQ to another state with a more pro-business environment.”

Since then, Florida Gov. Rick Scott has taken out radio ads and made a personal visit to Connecticut. Also, Indiana took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal lending its support to GE and Governor Michael R. Pence sent a letter to Immelt.

More recently, Bloomberg reported that GE has had discussions about relocating to Atlanta and that it possibly meeting with a developer regarding space at Three Alliance Center, a 30-story building being built in Atlanta.

That news came on the heels of a Politico New York report that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, visited the Fairfield headquarters July 30 on a recruiting trip for a possible move to Westchester County and incentives New York might offer.

GE has also been linked Texas but Bloomberg recently reported that the company has crossed off the Dallas area for a possible relocation site.

As more and more states attempt to lure GE out of Connecticut, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and his administration recently proposed specific assistance to keep GE in Fairfield but details of the discussions haven’t been divulged.