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FOR NEARLY TWO decades, Raiffeisen Banking Group, Austria's second-largest banking firm, has maintained a small representative office in Manhattan.
But last June, it decided to set up a larger unit--RZB Finance--that could establish relationships with banks in the United States and Latin America, and drum up interest among American corporations wishing to do business in Central and Eastern Europe.
Only one logical place
With such geographically wide-ranging goals, Raiffeisen considered only one place for its U.S. headquarters: Manhattan. "It makes sense for a finance company to be located in New York," says Frank J. Yautz, first vice president of RZB Finance. "This is where most of our customers and colleagues are." The bank's 18 New York staffers--all but two of whom are local hires--no occupy 11,800 square feet at 1133 Sixth Ave. The bank plans to double its staff's size within a year.
Such actions, and the recent decisions by larger foreign firms like Reuters Holdings to plant their U.S. headquarters firmly in New York's soil, reaffirm the city's status as the capital of industries such as banking and media. But they also represent what some experts say is a global ratification of Gotham's rehabilitation. "We meet with lots of foreign companies, and we're seeing a lot less concern on crime and quality-of-life issues as relates to New York," says James Schriner, director of location strategies for Deloitte & Touche Fantus Consulting, in Princeton, N.J.
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