From the sound of it, at least according to one media report, GlobeOp Financial Services is paying attention to retention, and knows a good deal when it sees it. When the Harrison, N.Y.-based hedge fund service firm decided to expand recently, it zoomed past the most logical and closest location for hedgies Ð Fairfield County, Conn. Ð and headed up the highway to Hartford. As is well known, Fairfield County is home to Greenwich, one of the largest HF centers in the country, if not the world. But Hartford offered certain advantages that other hedge funds may want to consider. The Fairfield County Business Journal reports that although GlobeOp hasn't come out and said so, it considered Hartford first because it offers a major advantage over Greenwich, or New York for that matter. The state capital, says Bruce McGuire, president of Connecticut Hedge Fund Association, told the Journal, "might seemÉfar enough from Greenwich, that maybe your employees might not as readily jump ship to go work for a

hedge fund's internal operations." Traditionally, says the Journal, staffers in Hartford tend not to suffer from worker wanderlust. There may be another reason why GlobeOp opted for Hartford. Two new laws that went into effect in July provide tax credits for companies that relocate: One offers breaks for

creating 50 jobs and another does the same for hiring laid-off workers in the state. It's not clear, according to the paper, whether the tax credits are pitched as an incentive to move to Fairfield County, but it seems GlobOps had its heart set on points north anyway.