Red Hat chooses Wake but makes friends in Durham

Among those on the losing end of Monday's announcement that Red Hat would be staying in Wake County was Durham's American Tobacco Campus.

American Tobacco made an aggressive pitch to try and win over Red Hat, and at the annual Downtown Durham Inc. luncheon in November Jim Goodmon (below), CEO of Capitol Broadcasting, the owner of American Tobacco, told the crowd that he intended to win Red Hat.

Luring Red Hat to Durham would have been a major coup, particularly since ATC just recently landed the cellphone maker HTC.

ATC's efforts to recruit Red Hat were high profile enough that the CEO of the Durham Chamber of Commerce, Casey Steinbacher, and Michael Goodmon, vice president of real estate for American Tobacco owner Capitol Broadcasting, put out a joint statement on Monday about the news that the Linux software maker would remain in Wake.

Here's the statement in its entirety:

"We at American Tobacco and the Durham Chamber of Commerce are happy that Red Hat, one of the Triangle's leading companies, will remain in the Triangle.

We thank Red Hat's leadership team for inviting us to respond to the company's RFP and for visiting downtown Durham and considering the hub of innovation that has taken root here -- a hub that includes such organizations and resources as Burt's Bees, Digitalsmith, McKinney, PocketGear, the American Underground, Bull City Forward and, soon, HTC.

Finally, we salute the Durham community -- from its public servants to its marquee companies to its many entertainment destinations -- for coming together so seamlessly to pursue Red Hat and other premiere businesses.  We have all made a friend in Red Hat."