Does Saskatoon have a place in major merger?

They meet every two years at the Saskatchewan Real Estate Forum, a blue-chip gathering of investors and real estate experts.

This year’s meeting, held in Regina in April, finally heard a well-known Saskatoon business executive say out loud what’s been talked about for months: Is Saskatoon going to lose an important head office?

At a panel discussion on investment, the business guy highlighted the uncertainty surrounding whether the head office of Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan (PCS) would remain in Saskatoon after its merger, to be finalized in the coming weeks, with Calgary-based Agrium.

Billed last September as a “merger of equals” some of us had convinced ourselves that PCS had made the move on Agrium. Calgary-based friends, brokers and business associates laugh that Agrium snagged PCS.

In any event, the newly merged company will be the world’s pre-eminent crop inputs firm. Not only boasting a massive retail distribution network it will be one of the planet’s largest fertilizer producers. The merged company will have about 20,000 employees (Agrium already has more than 15,000) and will generate annual revenues of more than $20 billion.

According to the companies “the registered head office” will be in Saskatoon, with Canadian corporate offices in both Calgary and Saskatoon.” Agrium CEO Chuck Magro becomes the new company’s CEO while PCS CEO Jochen Tilk will be executive chairman.

While corporate governance experts will opine on how long an executive chairman and a CEO can coexist and share duties in the C-suite, the better hope is that the actual corporate executives running the new super company are physically located in Saskatoon.

The fear being expressed in business circles is that Saskatoon will have the office responsible for potash production but the new company’s CEO and effective head office will stay where Agrium’s CEO is now based, in Calgary, or even eventually in the U.S. at a new facility under construction near Denver.

Agrium, even before the merger, had already announced a consolidation of its U.S. corporate and wholesale operations into a new “workplace of the future” to be called Rangeview V, located beside its Rangeview IV campus, which houses its vast retail division called Crop Production Services in Loveland, Colo.

PCS is not new to the “real versus superficial” head office debate.

In 2009 — a year before BHP Billiton made an offer to buy PCS for $39 billion — there had been growing public discontent that PotashCorp was effectively being run from the company’s U.S. office in Chicago where then-CEO Bill Doyle and six of nine senior executives lived.

All the while, Saskatoon was listed as the registered corporate head office of PCS on both the Toronto and New York Stock exchanges, but practically it wasn’t.

As community pressure mounted and BHP Billiton began making inquiries, PCS migrated all of its important executive positions back to Saskatoon, where they remain today, along with current CEO Jochen Tilk who is a highly visible and active member of the community.

The fabric and vibrancy of any community, particularly smaller ones, are enhanced when major companies base their executives here.

Senior executives are like us, with social contacts and friends, raising families, putting down roots and giving back to their community.

But they are different, too. Their experience and success equip them as valuable mentors, advisers and resources within their community well beyond their companies.

They also provide a critical mass for other firms to consider locating their offices and senior staff in the same places where already successful companies and executives are located. This can be particularly effective in clusters like mining or enterprises related to the agri-food industry.

And, to be strictly selfish, any city does better when it has more citizens earning seven-figure salaries who invest their money in the local economy, pay taxes and donate to charities and community building.

Here’s hoping PotashCorp hasn’t forgotten where it came from.

John Gormley is a broadcaster, lawyer, author and former Progressive Conservative MP whose radio talk show is heard weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on 650 CKOM Saskatoon and 980 CJME Regina.