TRANSPORTATION : Kia Corp. of Korea Is Sending Cash to Its U.S. Subsidiary

Kia Motors North America is finally getting its cash fix from parent Kia Motor Corp. in South Korea, reports chief operating officer Greg Warner.

He won’t say what the subsidiary’s first year operating budget will be, but it is big enough that the government-controlled Central Bank of Korea had to approve the transfer of funds from Seoul to Irvine, where Kia’s U.S. headquarters have been set up.

Warner said that as soon as the long-awaited operating funds arrive he will be able to start the first wave of hiring--a process he said he expects to begin in November.

First on his shopping list are administrative personnel to expand the skeleton staff of 13 that rattles around in Kia’s offices these days. Dealership development and marketing people will come next, and Warner says he expects to have 130 people on payroll by next October.

That’s when Kia, South Korea’s largest truck maker and its No. 2 car maker behind Hyundai, plans to begin marketing a passenger car in the United States, to be followed a few months later by a sports utility vehicle.