Kforce: Selling Tampa headquarters could save company $2 million per year

Selling its Tampa headquarters will save staffing and professional services firm Kforce Inc. up to $2 million per year, company executives said Monday evening.

Speaking on an earnings call with investors, Kforce leaders said selling its office in Ybor City and shifting its workforce to a mix of remote and in-office employees will give the firm greater flexibility in how it operates in a post-COVID-19 world, said president Joseph Liberatore.

“The sale of our corporate headquarter building announced last week positions us to build out a state-of-the-art facility with a smaller real estate footprint, aligned with how work will be performed in the future, deploying a high-tech, high-touch, hybrid operating model,” Liberatore said.

Last week, Kforce announced it had reached a deal to sell its headquarters for $24 million to an undisclosed buyer. It will lease it back for up to 18 months while searching for a “smaller, more technology-enabled footprint in the Tampa Bay area,” said chief financial officer David Kelly.

Leasing its former headquarters will cost the firm hundreds of thousands of dollars during those 18 months. After that, it is expected to save the company $1.5 million to $2 million per year, Kelly said.

The company expects to use some of that money to expand headcount in its tech sector, particularly domestic technology staffing, which CEO David Dunkel said was a $31 billion market in 2020. The company has about 2,200 employees, including more than 600 in Tampa Bay, plus another 12,000 consultants on assignment worldwide.

The broader global shift to digital and remote work environments is a change that Dunkel said Kforce is particularly situated to take advantage of.

“Companies have significantly increased their technology spend over the past decade, and the rate of growth in this market is accelerating,” Dunkel said. “As we look to the future, there is no other single market segment where we would want to be focused.”

For the first three months of 2021, Kforce saw revenue of $363.2 million, up both from December and year-over-year. The company reported nearly $13.3 million in net income, down from December but up year-over-year.

Kforce stock closed at $57.38 per share on Thursday, up slightly on the day.