AllianceBernstein Nashville Office Opening Delayed by Virus

(Bloomberg) -- AllianceBernstein Holding LP Chief Executive Officer Seth Bernstein said the opening of the company’s Nashville headquarters has been pushed back to the first or second quarter of 2021 after the coronavirus crisis delayed construction plans.

The firm had planned to be moved in by the end of the year until the pandemic hit, Bernstein said Wednesday during a virtual Morgan Stanley conference.

The firm announced that it would move its corporate headquarters from Manhattan to Tennessee in 2018, taking more than 1,000 jobs with it. AllianceBernstein was one of several Wall Street firms to plan new offices in cheaper U.S. cities -- a trend that was underway before the coronavirus forced mass work from home policies and threw the future of shared workplaces into question.

“If you had told me four months ago that 97% of my people would be working remotely for what’s now over three months and we would be handling volumes that are much higher than normal, and increasing our engagement with retail, private and institutional clients, I would have told you, you were out of your mind,” Bernstein said during the conference.

He added that while his firm was equipped to continue working remotely indefinitely, it wouldn’t be his preference.

AllianceBernstein had $596 billion in assets under management at the end of May.

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