DeSantis wants to lure firms from Chicago

Gov. Ron DeSantis intends to take his next sales pitch for financial-sector companies to Chicago.

Appearing Wednesday at an Enterprise Florida Board of Directors meeting, DeSantis said plans are in the works for a trip to Chicago that would emulate two trips he made this year to New York.

“Warren Buffett said recently, be wary of investing in states like Illinois that quite frankly are digging themselves a deeper hole and really have no way out in terms of their fiscal outlook, their pension allocations,” DeSantis, referring to the Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO, said during the Enterprise Florida meeting in Jacksonville.

“I think there is an opportunity to talk to some folks and drive some investment here in Florida.”

Tim Vanderhoof, senior vice president of business development for Enterprise Florida, said a return to New York and trip to Connecticut are also being mapped out “to help sell Florida to our peers up north.”

“We hope that within 24 to 36 months there’s opportunity for some of them to expand in Florida, where the market is much more favorable to them,” Vanderhoof said.

Vanderhoof said the sales pitch is built around raising awareness of Florida’s workforce, business climate and quality of life against competition in Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C., with the targets including up-andcoming businesses in fields such as investment banking and blockchain.

DeSantis’ predecessor as governor also targeted businesses from Illinois.

In 2013, then-Gov. Rick Scott released an open letter to business leaders in Illinois, encouraging them to book “one-way” flights to Florida.

Former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, called efforts by Scott and others to poach companies “showboating.”