Money management firm Fisher Investments plans to immediately relocate its headquarters from Washington state to Texas after a Washington State Supreme Court ruling upheld a capital gains tax on its wealthiest residents.
The firm announced its headquarters move with one sentence late Friday, saying, "In honor of the Washington State Supreme Court's wisdom and knowledge of the law, and in recognition of whatever it may do next, Fisher Investments is immediately moving its headquarters from Washington State to Texas."
The 44-year-old company, led by Dallas-based executive chairman, co-chief investment officer and founder Ken Fisher, plans to locate its new headquarters in its Dallas-area office at 6500 International Parkway in Plano, Texas.
Fisher Investments opened the Plano office six years ago. Details on how the move could affect its more than 5,000 employees were not immediately available. Fisher Investments also has corporate offices in California and Florida.
As of last year, the independent, fee-only investment adviser and its subsidiaries managed more than $197 billion in assets throughout the world, including over $156 billion for private investors, $39 billion for institutional investors and $2 billion for U.S. small- to mid-sized business retirement plans, company officials said.
The Washington Supreme Court's ruling last week targets wealthy individuals in an effort to raise $500 million per year for schools. The ruling Friday overturns a lower court's ruling that found the tax to be unconstitutional because it doesn't equally apply to everyone, according to media reports.
The tax, enacted in 2021, applies a 7% tax on the sale of financial assets, such as stocks and bonds, with the tax only applying to profits over $250,000 and does not apply to real estate or retirement accounts, according to local media reports.
Fisher Investments wouldn't be the first company making the move to Texas and seeking a lower tax environment with fewer regulatory hurdles. There were 275 headquarter relocations to Texas from other states between 2015 and February 2023, according to the office of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Those relocations include 139 headquarter moves from California, including Tesla's Elon Musk decision in 2021 to move the company's headquarters from the West Coast to Central Texas seeking a business-friendly environment. And Charles Schwab, another financial services firm, officially moved its California headquarters to Texas in January 2021.