Stock exchange operator Nasdaq Inc. is locating a new regional headquarters in the Dallas area, another sign of how the traditional heavyweights of finance are racing to ramp up in North Texas.
At a press conference with Gov. Greg Abbott and Hillwood Chairman Ross Perot Jr., Nasdaq announced March 18 that it will put its second U.S. headquarters in the Dallas area. Nasdaq states it generates more than $750 million in revenue in Texas and the southeast region of the U.S. and 800 of the exchange’s 2,000 companies are based in Texas. The news comes as the New York Stock Exchange and Texas Stock Exchange prepare to set up shop in Dallas.
“The space will be a hub to Nasdaq clients and to the wider community, and will serve as a community space to celebrate the leaders, the entrepreneurs and innovators that call Texas home,” Nasdaq chair and CEO Adena Friedman said in during the event, held at the Crescent in Uptown Dallas.
It’s unclear where in the Dallas area the regional headquarters will be located. Nasdaq, which is based in New York, announced last September it would place one of its three regional listing divisions in Irving, in an existing office at 503 Riverside Dr.
Perot, who was involved in the deal to secure the regional headquarters and was coincidentally honored with Nasdaq’s lifetime achievement award at this week’s event, said the location is still undetermined. Hillwood last year bought multiple office buildings in Irving from UBS. Hillwood is also partially responsible for developing the new Goldman Sachs campus in Dallas, along with Hunt Realty Investments.
“Everybody wants to be close to Goldman,” Perot said in an interview with Dallas Business Journal. “In financial services, Goldman is a major magnet. And a lot of the clients I call up call up now say, ‘Look, we just want to be over near Goldman.'”
Perot said he’s been working with Abbott for four or five years on bringing more Nasdaq presence to Texas.
“These things take awhile. Goldman took four or five years,” he said. “With all of them, you work with a client, you bring them in, you stay on them, they watch the state, they make a decision. As I mentioned there, hopefully there are a lot more coming.”
Perot was honored by Nasdaq with a lifetime achievement award on the day of the new regional headquarters announcement. Perot heads Hillwood, which has been an economic powerhouse for the region with the 27,000-acre AllianceTexas hub north of Fort Worth and landing several corporate headquarters such as Charles Schwab and Fidelity Investments. Since 1990, it’s estimated that AllianceTexas has generated $130 billion in economic impact. Hillwood also developed Victory Park in Dallas and its residential division is responsible for multiple master-planed communities across the Metroplex.
Abbott called Perot the “Derek Harper of economic development,” referring to a former player with the Dallas Mavericks who is the top all-time assist leader for the team with 5,111, according to the NBA.
Despite concerns about the impact of tariffs on raising overall prices for development, Perot said the pipeline is still strong.
“We’ve got a lot of really great space, built pre-tariff,” he said. “I think it’s going to help fill up a lot of our space. That’s for us short term, then long term, buildings are going to cost more and it’ll be less competitive, but hopefully whatever fights we’re trying to have will get resolved.”
