Hasbro mulling HQ move to Boston – Boston Business Journal

The toy giant Hasbro Inc. is considering moving its headquarters to Boston from Rhode Island, according to several real estate sources, a move that would bolster a still-recovering downtown Boston while dealing a blow to the Ocean State business community.

The Pawtucket-based company (Nasdaq: HAS) has recently toured multiple downtown Boston office buildings, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of a potential relocation. 

One of the world’s largest toy makers, Hasbro is looking for roughly 200,000 to 250,000 square feet, a huge block of space, especially in the post-Covid market, sources said. It has also considered relocating to Boston’s suburbs, they said.

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks, while attending a business luncheon in Providence on Monday, directed all questions to Roberta Thomson, Hasbro’s chief communications officer. Thomson neither confirmed nor denied that Hasbro is seeking corporate office space in Boston and said the company would have no comment at this time.

Hasbro was founded in Providence a century ago and is one of the biggest and best-known companies headquartered in Rhode Island. It is behind many of the brands that have been childhood staples in this country for decades, including Monopoly, Play-Dough, My Little Pony, G.I. Joe and Nerf. It is heavily investing in building up its digital game offerings.

The timeline for a decision was not immediately clear. Hasbro owns its 343,000-square-foot headquarters on Newport Avenue in Pawtucket, according to its most recent annual report. It also owns a small building next door for its corporate division. 

The company announced late last year it would move out of another Rhode Island office, in downtown Providence, by the time its lease expires in early 2025. It revealed at the same time that it would lay off 20% of its workforce, or 1,100 employees, cuts that came on top of significant layoffs in early 2023.

A key moment in Hasbro’s history

The real estate search comes at a pivotal time for Hasbro. Under Cocks’ leadership, the company in July logged its second profitable quarter after a lengthy earnings slide. 

Since becoming CEO in early 2022, Cocks has weathered a bruising proxy fight, implemented a new corporate strategy, assembled a refreshed leadership team, slashed the company’s workforce, jettisoned its debt-laden eOne film studio, and set the underperforming company on a new course.

Hasbro shares, trading at around $69 on Friday, have jumped 38% since the beginning of the year, giving it a market cap of around $9.6 billion. However, the company is still down 42% over a five-year span. 

“We’re going all-in on becoming a digital-play company,” Cocks told analysts on a recent call. “We’re skating to where the puck is going as opposed to where the puck has been.”

The company and its subsidiaries brought in $5 billion in net revenues last year. As of the end of 2023, it had 5,500 employees worldwide.

Giant lease up for grabs

In Boston, the search has set off excited chatter among the city’s real estate brokers and landlords. A lease approaching 250,000 square feet would be one of the largest signed in the city since 2020, at a time when almost a quarter of the city’s office space is available for rent.

The city could find itself home to two of the largest toy makers, depending on Hasbro’s decision. Lego is set to move its headquarters for the Americas region to a new Back Bay office tower next year from its longtime home in Enfield, Connecticut. It is taking more than 100,000 square feet at the site.

Sources familiar with the search say that in addition to traditional offices, Hasbro is interested in a location where it could have a production space for purposes of research and development.

Massachusetts and Rhode Island competed for another corporate prize not long ago, when the Healey administration tried to court Providence-based Citizens Financial Group to the Bay State. Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee signed a tax change into law this summer that was thought to be enough to keep Citizens in that state.

Massachusetts notched a win, however, when it lured the former Pawtucket Red Sox to Worcester in 2018.