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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIllinois Gov. Pat Quinn on Friday signed tax-break legislation designed to keep the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Sears Holding Co. from fleeing the state.
CME and Sears almost immediately issued statements saying they would remain in Illinois.
Both companies threatened to leave the state without the measures lawmakers adopted this week.
CME, which operates the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade, NYMEX Holdings, and a majority of the Dow Jones indexes, had talked to Indianapolis officials about moving the company to central Indiana. The move would have meant 1,700 or more high-paying jobs for Indianapolis.
The company also likely talked to Carmel about a similar move.
The bill signed by Quinn renews a credit Sears has been getting for years and guarantees the company a $15 million break on its taxes over the next decade. It retools tax calculations for the profitable CME by changing how much of its business is subject to state income taxes.
“This necessary adjustment to the Illinois corporate tax laws will put CME Group on more equal footing with other Illinois companies and other global exchanges,” CME Group Executive Chairman Terry Duffy said. "CME Group has been a part of Chicago for more than 160 years and, because of the efforts of [lawmakers], we will continue to call the great state of Illinois and city of Chicago the risk management capital of the world."
CME has 2,570 employees worldwide, with most of them located in Chicago. It reported more than $3 billion in revenue in 2010 and more than $950 million in earnings.
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