Uniden to Shift Corporate Headquarters to Indiana

Uniden Corp. of America is transferring its Huntington Beach headquarters to Indianapolis at the end of the month, a move that will result in layoffs of at least 35 of its 70 workers, the communications equipment company confirmed Wednesday.

Orange County has served as the corporate headquarters for the U.S. subsidiary of Uniden International Corp. of Japan for the last several years, but the vast majority of Uniden employees in the U.S. are already stationed in Indianapolis. There, about 300 workers handle the company’s marketing, distribution, warehousing and research operations.

John Lane, vice president of administration, said the move is designed to consolidate the company’s far-flung U.S. operations into a single location. The firm’s New York marketing office, with five employees, also is being closed.

Lane said the consolidation is unrelated to the sales decline in cordless telephones, a market that Uniden dominates. Lane said that although the company leads the cordless market, telephones are just a small part of Uniden’s business, far behind satellite and marine communications equipment.

Lane said he expected at least half of the employees at the Huntington Beach facility, including workers in the accounting, credit, and data processing departments, to lose their jobs as a result of the move. However, several employees have been asked to transfer with the company to Indianapolis.

The move is not expected to affect the annual Uniden Invitational, a Ladies Professional Golf Assn. tournament the company sponsors in March at the Mesa Verde Country Club in Costa Mesa.