Nissan Is Said to Be Leaving the Southland

Nissan Motor Co. is likely to announce as early as next week that it will move its North American headquarters, and 1,300 jobs, from Gardena to Tennessee as a cost-cutting measure, according to sources inside and outside the company.

About a dozen people, including Nissan managers, auto consultants and government officials, all of whom asked not to be identified, said the automaker had set things in motion to move its headquarters to the Nashville area, where Nissan’s largest U.S. manufacturing plant is located.

Nissan executives declined to comment. “We are studying the issue and when a decision is made we will announce it,” said spokesman Fred Standish.

But several company insiders, who asked to remain unidentified because they feared losing their jobs, say Nissan already has signed a deal to lease new headquarters facilities in Williamson County, Tenn. The area is close to Nashville and is about 20 miles west of Nissan’s North American manufacturing headquarters in Smyrna, where the company has 7,000 workers.

A spokeswoman for Williamson County’s economic development agency said Wednesday that she could not comment because “there has been no official announcement.”

On Monday, a group of Los Angeles political and economic development officials, along with a representative of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office, met with Nissan executives in Gardena.

Nissan is concerned about the added expense of staying in California and “about government attitudes” in the state, said an official who asked to remain unidentified because of a confidentiality agreement with Nissan.

Nissan’s North American management committee meets next week to consider the pluses and minuses of relocating the Gardena operation.

The study was begun nearly a year ago as part of Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn’s initiative to reduce global administrative expenses. Ghosn has said he wants to see considerable improvement next year in Nissan’s industry-leading 10.5% operating profit margin.

In one cost-cutting step, Ghosn already has ordered Nissan to move its global headquarters to the port city of Yokohama from Tokyo’s glittery, high-priced Ginza district.

Nissan employs about 1,300 people in Gardena and Carson, where its top North American management, marketing, advertising, sales distribution and development staffs work.

One celebrated Nissan figure who opposes the proposed move is retired executive Yutaka Katayama, renowned as the father of the Nissan “Z” sports car. Katayama, 96, is called “Mr. K” by legions of Nissan enthusiasts and was head of the U.S. operation from its inception in 1958 until 1978.

He hand-delivered a letter, entitled “Voice Against Relocation,” to Ghosn’s office at the company’s Tokyo headquarters two weeks ago, said his longtime associate Masataka Usami.

In an e-mail to The Times, Katayama said he believed that relocating its California headquarters would cost Nissan “its sensitivity to the [U.S.] car business” by removing key marketing and product development people from an area “considered to be the birthplace of automobile culture.”

Southern California now is the home to all but one of the 10 Asian automakers doing business in the United States. In addition, most major automakers have design studios here.

Nissan employees in Gardena are said to be upset about the proposed move and some executives say privately they expect many of the staff will resign rather than relocate to Tennessee.

Auto industry consultants say widespread resignations would help Nissan save money because it could replace highly paid employees with new workers at lower pay with lesser benefits.

Finding replacement workers shouldn’t be difficult, said George Peterson, president of AutoPacific Inc., a research and consulting firm in Tustin. Both Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. are laying off thousands of salaried workers.

“With all the layoffs in Detroit, there’s certain to be a lot of good applicants out there” for Nissan to pick from, he said.

And the Nashville area has a substantial auto industry, including a large number of parts companies supplying Nissan’s sprawling plant in Smyrna and GM’s nearby Saturn plant in Spring Hill.

Nissan shares closed Wednesday at $20.63, down 14 cents.