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NPS Pharmaceuticals Plans to Remain in Salt Lake City

Posted on: Wednesday, 14 June 2006, 21:00 CDT

By Bob Mims, The Salt Lake Tribune

Jun. 14--NPS Pharmaceuticals has not taken, nor does it plan any formal action to move its corporate headquarters out of Salt Lake City.

But nor does the company's four-week-old CEO, N. Anthony Coles, anticipate moving from NPS offices in Parsippany, N.J. The East Coast also is home, after recent appointments, to five of the company's other eight senior executives.

So, as a matter of convenience, NPS says its board meetings will alternate between the company's year-old, $14 million, 100,000-square-foot headquarters building on Salt Lake City's northeast bench and NPS offices in Parsippany (75,000 square feet).

And many of the company's news releases will carry the Parsippany dateline, reflecting the origin of statements -- just as a Salt Lake City dateline was used up until NPS co-founder Hunter Jackson stepped down as CEO on May 12.

However, that dateline change falls far short of an official christening of new headquarters, and no changes are expected in Salt Lake City's corporate responsibilities, said Brandi Simpson, NPS' senior director for corporate affairs.

"Changing corporate headquarters, legally, is meaningless, according to our attorneys," Simpson said, characterizing reports indicating an end to Salt Lake City's corporate governance activities as "overblown. . . . We haven't changed the way NPS has been conducting business."

On Monday the company announced a 53 percent cut in its work force of about 500 -- including 44 of 120 jobs in Utah -- and that it would sublease half of its Salt Lake City building. NPS also said it will halt commercialization efforts for its osteoporosis drug, Preos, because of delays in getting Food and Drug Administration approval.

As of late Tuesday, though, neither NPS filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission nor company news releases contained any mention of official headquarters relocation. The subject did not come up during the company's Monday teleconference, either.

Simpson said technology has made the concept of a brick-and-mortar headquarters increasingly obsolete. Video and teleconferencing, instant messaging and Internet-based document collaboration have spread the function through cyberspace.

For example, CEO Coles is in New Jersey, senior scientific officer Ed Nemeth is in Toronto, and Salt Lake City is home to drug discovery vice president Alan Mueller and Val Antczak, senior vice president for legal affairs and general counsel.

And, Simpson noted, on paper NPS Pharmaceuticals is incorporated neither in Utah nor New Jersey, but Delaware. Many companies choose that state to benefit from less restrictive tax and regulatory environments.

Wherever NPS decisions evolve, the jobs of 76 employees left in the Salt Lake City corporate offices -- roughly the same-sized work force as in New Jersey -- are not in peril, Simpson stressed.

And, with many NPS executives and the pool of future senior executive candidates predominantly on the East Coast, the Parsippany office will continue to play a major role in recruiting as well as decision making.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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NPSP,

Source: The Salt Lake Tribune

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