NAVTEQ Corporation (formerly Navigation Technologies) is a leading provider of comprehensive digital map information for automotive navigation systems, mobile navigation devices, and Internet-based mapping applications. NAVTEQ's map database, which is its principal product, is a highly accurate and detailed representation of road transportation networks in the United States, Canada, Western Europe and other regions. Every navigation system in North American cars has NAVTEQ data in it. The majority of European navigation systems feature its data Internet/Wireless Applications (e.g. MapQuest) and Business Solutions Applications (e.g. FedEx).
NAVTEQ (NYSE: NVT) is headquartered in Chicago, USA with approximately 2,000 employees worldwide. The company has 144 offices in 60 countries, including a European headquarters in Veldoven, Netherlands; a major production facility in Fargo, ND; and support centers in Seoul, South Korea; Yokohama, Japan; and Mexico City.
In October 2007 Nokia Oyj, the world's biggest mobile-phone company, agreed to buy NAVTEQ for $8.1 billion to gain digital maps of 69 countries and compete with TomTom NV in the market for navigation devices. NAVTEQ, whose clients for maps include Yahoo! Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., has been profitable every quarter since going public three years ago. The company had sales of $582 million last year, compared with revenue equal to $58.6 billion for Nokia.
“Being able to bring people, time, place, context to your mobile device, we think will be quite powerful,” Nokia Chief Financial Officer Richard Simonson said.
NAVTEQ was founded in Silicon Valley in 1985, but relocated its headquarters from California to Rosemont, Illinois in the 1990s, taking advantage of Chicago’s central location. In 2001, it moved to the Merchandise Mart in downtown Chicago, where they have had 77% job growth in just five years. The company recently announced one of the largest downtown tenant moves of the year when it leased 230,000 square feet in 100 North Riverside Plaza (the Boeing Building). The lease fully occupies the building.
NAVTEQ initially moved downtown because it believed the company needed to be in Chicago to attract appropriate talent to its dynamic technology environment. Additionally, Chicago's infrastructure, central location and airports make the city an ideal location for interacting with customers and employees.
“This is a global, high-tech company, and it has found that downtown Chicago is the ideal location for the center of its far-flung empire,” Mayor Richard M. Daley said at a news conference at the company’s Merchandise Mart headquarters. “These companies are much better off in Chicago than on one of the coasts, because Chicago is the center of the Northern Hemisphere – with non-stop flights to 60 international cities and 134 in the United States.”
The recent lease at the Boeing Building fell within the City's proposed LaSalle Central TIF (tax incremental financing) District, offering NAVTEQ $5 million in tax incentives for the build-out of new office space. The company, in turn, agreed to retain approximately 550 employees and create an additional 350 new full-time jobs in the next five years.
The physical improvements to the building will be LEED-certified by the U.S. Green Building Council to meet the highest environmental standards. In addition, NAVTEQ will work with the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development to create a job recruiting program and will donate $50,000 to one or more non-profit organizations.