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Chicago is celebrating, just like the Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill. The capital city of the state of Illinois, where the modern skyscraper was born, is to be the location for the headquarters of the world's biggest airline, United Continental Holdings, set up yesterday after the merger of the American airlines United and Continental. The headquarters of the company, which will carry on a bitter struggle for world leadership with Lufthansa, will be in the skyscraper designed by Ricardo Bofill, with works by Antoni Tapiés and Xavier Corberó inside.
The biggest aviation company in the world has chosen the most prestigious address in the CBD – 77 Wacker Drive – to locate its headquarters. This skyscraper in the Loop, which has won more awards than any other in the modern history of Chicago, was built by the legendary developer Mike Reschke, the most famous American client of the architect Ricardo Bofill. The two are linked by a 25-year professional relationship that has led to the two of them making landmarks in Chicago, such as the JP Morgan building.
At 204 metres high and with 51 floors, this granite and glass tower has even been mentioned by President Obama, who referred to 77 as the most beautiful modern tower block in his city. With 90% efficiency and profitability that has beaten many records, its elegance based on gravitas and an eternal classicism more vertical than ever, despite its medium height, has captivated everyone with its proportions, its materials, its famous marble entrance halls and its wooden lifts.
The tower block and the office of the chief executive of the new company, Jeff Smisek, have been the location for many films, such as "The Negotiator" and “Batman, The Dark Night". Jeff Smisek will perhaps be the next Batman. Born 55 years ago, he occupied the same position at Continental. His opposite number at United, Glenn Tilton, will take on the non-executive presidency. With the distribution of powers under which one company (United) is maintaining its commercial name while the other is keeping its top management, the airlines insist that this is a merger between equals.
United shareholders will control 55% of the new company and investors in Continental 45%, with an exchange of equity. The operation, which was attempted before, unsuccessfully, in 2008 and which is now valued at 3,170 million dollars (2,403 million euros) has been led by the man who will be the highest ranking executive at the new company, Smisek. He phoned Tilton after finding out in the American press that United was holding merger negotiations with another airline (US Airways). “My best potential partner was walking off with someone else and I advised him to switch and go for the pretty girl," explained Smisek yesterday.
The operation, with which the two companies are seeking to gain size outside their own country and to protect themselves against low-cost domestic competitors, will create a firm with a joint turnover of 29,000 million dollars (21,800 million euros; Lufthansa's turnover was 22,280 million euros in 2009) and capitalization of 6,800 million dollars. This is the second big concentration movement in the United States in the airline sector, following the merger between Delta and Northwest in 2008, and on a par with the merger between Iberia and British Airways in Europe, a process that will be completed at the end of this year. The American companies expect to achieve annual synergies of 1,200 million from 2013, even though there is no duplication between their routes and that yesterday they pledged that job cuts will be minimal. The two – like Lufthansa members of the Star Alliance – have 88,000 workers.
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