The Business Expansion + Location Solutions (BELS) Team at Parker Poe advises international and domestic companies and their advisors seeking to locate, expand, or restructure facility operations in North America. In this collaborative model, Parker Poe assembles the right team of attorneys and consultants based on the needs of each client, creating a seamless and proven structure for successful location and expansion projects.
We have partnered with clients on over 300 projects, resulting in over $20 billion in capital investments and over 20,000 new jobs created. We provide comprehensive services related to site selection, business expansion incentives and financing, business structuring and acquisitions, immigration, government affairs, regulatory compliance, real estate, environmental permitting, and beyond. Our team advises on any or all stages of our clients’ expansion projects, working as an extension of their management team.
Our team includes professionals with prior public sector economic development experience, having served in state and local roles both overseas and in the U.S. Our team and professionals have also earned a variety of rankings and served in a range of community roles that demonstrate our leadership in economic development and international business circles. These include Southern Business & Development magazine naming us one of the best economic development law firms in the South in 2024 and Best Lawyers recognizing our team and lawyers as leaders in economic development.
Site Selection, Location Advisory + Analytics Our consultants provide data-driven analysis that allows clients to select the best location for U.S. investment, using a filtered approach by analyzing factors such as:
We also offer the following stand-alone services for companies at various stages of their expansion projects:
Business Expansion Incentives We help clients maximize incentives at shortlisted or expanding locations, including:
Incentives Monitoring + Compliance We monitor and track incentives to ensure that companies comply with all reporting requirements and receive all negotiated incentive benefits. We also identify areas where re-negotiation may be needed due to over- or under-performance.
Legal Implementation for Business Expansions As a full-service law firm, we advise companies on initial investment and ongoing operations, including:
Initial Market Entry Services for International Companies We also assist companies entering the U.S. market on a smaller scale, either with a sales office or without a physical location at all. We support international clients through our market-entry offerings, including guidance on business costs and benefits across various locations; connections to U.S. business resources for new business ventures; company structuring and formation; advising on mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures; and negotiating commercial contracts with suppliers and customers as well as real estate leasing and acquisition.
Cultural Fluency We have deep personal connections in a variety of the countries our clients call home, enabling us to provide advice based on our intimate understanding of cross-border business and cultural differences. Click here to learn more about our extensive experience advising European, Asia-Pacific, and Latin American companies.
We frequently partner with industrial brokers, accountants, construction and engineering professionals, site selectors from other firms, and other advisors. We travel together on international prospect missions to Europe, Asia, and Latin America. We also collaborate closely to help shared clients achieve their goals, providing services as one cohesive team related to:
We have deep partnerships with economic development organizations (EDOs) to help our business clients and communities achieve their goals. Our team and professionals are members of and hold leadership positions within a variety of EDOs in the U.S. Our partnerships with EDOs include:
Economic Development + Local Government Counsel We advise EDOs and local governments on economic development agreements and incentives, tax credits, public finance, infrastructure development, public-private partnerships (P3), land use and zoning, and other services to attract and retain businesses. Click here to learn more.
Advising Prospect Companies We routinely partner with EDOs and local governments to support their business prospects who need legal advice when locating to their community. See our International + Domestic Companies drop-down above for the full range of services we can provide to your community’s economic development prospect.
Partnering on Business Development We partner with EDOs and local governments to find mutually beneficial prospects for their markets. This includes regularly traveling with EDO and local government leaders on international prospect missions to Europe, Asia, and Latin America to meet with companies who seek to expand in North America.
Below is a sample of our clients’ successes, including the capital investments and jobs created.
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