WALL STREET SOUTH

Florida braces for a gold-plated makeover as finance rethinks its attachment to New York

- PAT REGNIER

Construction cranes pirouette above the skyline in Miami. Porsches are selling briskly in Coral Gables. Over in Palm Beach, along Worth and Hibiscus avenues, the Gucci set is counting new neighbors. The scent of fresh money hangs over Florida these days like the sweet smell of orange blossoms. In the midst of a deadly pandemic—and in truth, largely because of it—an optimism has taken hold among the state’s boosters.

Locals are buzzing again that the Miami area might finally realize a long elusive dream of becoming Wall Street South. Several prominent financial companies, including the mighty Goldman Sachs Group Inc., are considering moving some business there, or are relocating outright. And in these days of working from home, Florida’s low taxes, year-round warm weather, and emerald golf links are already luring some Wall Street people down from New York.

To David Greenberg, a former board member of the New York Mercantile Exchange who helps run a family investment office in Boca Raton, news that Goldman may move its asset-management division here was a watershed moment. “There’s no way to put that genie back in the bottle,” says Greenberg.

Maybe. This sultry home of tourism, cruise ships, and retirees has been trying to diversify its economy for generations, with mixed success. Even as Miami’s Brickell neighborhood transformed into Florida’s version of Manhattan a decade ago, the state has attracted only a smattering of mostly small to medium-size hedge funds, family offices, and banks looking for a convenient hub for Latin American wealth management. In research firm Z/Yen’s Global Financial Centres Index, the Miami area doesn’t even make a cameo.