BASF Will Close Anaheim Plant; 124 to Lose Jobs : Economy: The subsidiary of a German manufacturing conglomerate will consolidate its U.S. paint business at plants in Michigan and Ohio.

BASF Corp. said Monday that it will close a paint plant in Anaheim before the end of the year, putting all 124 employees out of work.

The company said it would move production to plants in Michigan and Ohio to achieve greater efficiency.

BASF makes paint and primer mostly for the auto industry. But that market is ailing as the recession pinches car sales.

The New Jersey-based conglomerate, a subsidiary of Germany’s BASF AG, is probably best known to consumers for its audio and video tape. It also makes a wide range of chemicals, colorants, plastics, antifreeze, pesticides, drugs, vitamins and inks.

BASF has paint plants in Canada, the United States and South America.

The Anaheim plant was purchased in 1950 by paint maker Rinshed-Mason, which was purchased by BASF in the late 1960s.

The Michigan and Ohio plants that will assume the Anaheim plant’s business are newer and closer to the company’s big customers in Detroit, a spokesman said.

Stringent air-quality regulations in Southern California have hit paint manufacturers and users especially hard, pushing some out of the region, but BASF said those regulations weren’t a factor.

Another BASF unit in Anaheim, Narco Materials, a maker of adhesives for the aerospace industry, was fined $14,500 in 1990 by the South Coast Air Quality Management District for letting polluting gases escape from its plant.

Anthony W. Opipari, a group vice president of BASF’s paint business, said the company “deeply regrets the effect this business decision will have on our employees at Anaheim.”

The company said it will offer laid-off workers a severance package based on the length of their employment and will return their accrued pension benefits. The plant--on North Lemon Street in the Northpark neighborhood of Anaheim--is not unionized, BASF said.

BASF will retain a small presence in Orange County with the Narco plant, a polymer manufacturing plant in Orange and a warehouse in Buena Park. Those facilities employ nearly 300 people.

Layoffs in Orange County pushed the unemployment rate to 5.3% in January, the most recent figure available. Although that rate is lower than the state and national averages, it is much higher than usual for the county.