The first of two planned Fisher Investments office towers has started rising out of the ground in west Camas. But executive Ken Fisher said Friday he would not move his company of 1,155 employees to Clark County unless Washington’s voters soundly reject Initiative 1098, a state ballot measure that would tax the incomes of people who earn $200,000 or more.
Fisher, 59, has hinted for three years that the $30 million Camas complex could be his company’s next corporate headquarters. Camas is in the running against sites in income-tax-free states Texas and Florida. But Washington will be out of the mix if Initiative 1098 is enacted, said Fisher, chairman and chief executive officer of Woodside, Calif.-based Fisher Investments, which manages assets and accounts for high-net-worth individuals and institutions — those with at least $500,000 in investments.
“If 1098 gets within 5 percent of passing there is no way under God’s little green apples Washington will ever be our corporate headquarters and likely (Camas) will never see another building,” Fisher said in an e-mail.
Fisher, a Forbes magazine columnist for 25 years, expects the first of two six-story Camas office buildings to open next fall.
His company opened a Vancouver satellite office four years ago for about 50 employees. The office, in the Columbia Tech Center, now houses 325 employees, who annually earn between $75,000 and $200,000. Their jobs will be moved to Fisher Investments’ Camas campus once construction there is complete.
Fisher has long called California’s business climate “the most hostile in the country” for its 9.3 percent state income tax and higher-priced housing.
Washington’s proposed Initiative 1098 would impose a 5 percent tax rate on annual income after the first $200,000 for individuals and $400,000 for couples. It would impose a 9 percent tax rate on incomes that top $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for couples.
Fisher, who founded Fisher Investments in 1973, was listed as No. 252 among the 400 richest Americans by Forbes business magazine in July. It pegged his net worth at $1.6 billion. Bill Gates, founder of Redmond-based Microsoft, topped the list of richest individuals, with a net worth of $54 billion.
Fisher Investments employs 665 people in California, mostly at the company’s San Mateo-based offices, near San Francisco.
The recent start of construction at company’s Camas campus will be celebrated at an invitation-only ceremony on Oct. 26. Invitations were e-mailed to about 60 people in the local business community, said Kelly Flanigan, a secretary to project consultant Landerholm Law of Vancouver.
Howard S. Wright Constructors is general contractor for the project, which is located on a 150-acre tract on the south side of Southeast 20th Street, touching the border between Vancouver and Camas. The two-building office complex will have parking for more than 1,200 vehicles.
A development agreement between Fisher Investments and the city of Camas called for the city to fabricate a $2 million sewer pump station, which the city expects to complete in 2011, said Paul Dennis, Camas mayor.
