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ABB will add 130 jobs in N.C.
Sep 10, 2010 (The News & Observer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
ABB, a Swiss energy conglomerate with North American headquarters in Cary, plans to create 130 jobs in the state over the next three years.
The company announced Thursday that it will build a $90 million manufacturing plant near Charlotte that will employ 100 people. The other 30 jobs will be engineering positions at the company's facility on N.C. State's Centennial Campus.
State officials awarded ABB more than $2.5 million in incentives if it meets hiring milestones.
The moves will increase ABB's already sizable presence in the state. The company, which relocated its headquarters to Cary from Connecticut last year, employs about 775 people in North Carolina.
About 550 of those are in the Triangle, with 250 in Cary and the rest on Centennial Campus, where the company's power products division has headquarters.
The jobs at the new plant in Huntersville in Mecklenburg County will pay an average of $49,093 a year. The Raleigh jobs will pay an average of $84,000 a year.
ABB makes power transmission and distribution equipment, such as substations and transmission lines, as well as the software and hardware used to manage electricity flowing through the grid.
The Huntersville plant will make high-voltage cables that can be placed underground and used to transport power from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.
ABB, which has its global headquarters in Switzerland, has similar plants in Sweden and Russia that make under sea cables.
The company considered sites all over North America but choose Huntersville because of the state's abundance of engineering talent and its universities, said Bob Fesmire, ABB's media relations manager.
"The tax incentives help, too," he said.
ABB is building the plant with the expectation that there will be strong demand for the high-voltage cables as the U.S. moves to replace, upgrade and extend its transmission lines.
"There's basically a transmission shortage in the U.S.," Fesmire said. "The pace of spending on transmission has increased somewhat in recent years, but for a long time, it was really not keeping pace with demand."
ABB shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange and on the Stockholm and Swiss stock exchanges.
The company's New York Stock Exchange shares closed at $20.46 on Thursday, up 25 percent over the last three months.
david.bracken@newsobserver.com or 919-829-4548
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