Kinko’s Plans to Relocate Headquarters

Kinko’s Corp. said Tuesday that it will move its corporate headquarters from Ventura to Texas, saying the company can save money with a more central location.

The move will cost Ventura hundreds of local jobs and leave it with only one other major corporate headquarters, officials said.

“We have a national footprint,” Chief Executive Gary Kusin said. “We need to be able to flexibly reach locations throughout our footprint. This will significantly decrease travel costs and time.”

Ventura officials had been concerned about a departure since Kusin, the former head of Texas-based HQ Global Workplaces Inc., was appointed chief executive in August.

The city offered Kinko’s incentives to stay, but Kusin said the company expects to get a better deal in Texas--which also has a lower-paid work force and no state income tax. He said the company is in negotiations with several cities in northern Texas, but he declined to identify them.

The company employs more than 1,000 workers in Ventura. Kusin said he expects at least 500 positions will be moved from Ventura to Texas, but he could not say how many people would be relocated.

Although the move is not expected to begin until early next year, Kusin said the company this week will lay off 350 people nationwide--100 of them in Ventura--as part of a corporate “right-sizing.”

Kusin said he expects to name the new headquarters city within a month and complete the move by 2003. Even so, he said the company’s accounting and technology departments, with as many as 300 workers, will remain in Ventura “for the foreseeable future.”

With more than 1,100 locations worldwide, privately held Kinko’s ranks as one of the largest copying and business services firms in the nation and one of the largest employers in Ventura.

The move underscores the difficulty of doing business in Ventura County, which is about a two-hour drive from Los Angeles International Airport. With Kinko’s departure, outdoor clothing manufacturer Patagonia will be the only major international company based there.

“Ventura is not the most convenient location for a major corporation versus being in Irvine or Ontario or El Segundo, where you’ve got an airport that’s 20 minutes away,” said development consultant Larry Kosmont, head of Kosmont & Associates. “That hurts Ventura.”

Kinko’s founder Paul Orfalea, who started the company in Santa Barbara in 1979 and moved it to Ventura in 1988, said in a statement that he was “extremely disappointed and troubled by this decision.”

“I just don’t feel like moving geographically gets the company any closer to the customer, and along with our co-workers that’s the most important aspect,” said Orfalea, who resigned as chairman last year.

Susan Daluddung, director of community development for Ventura, said the city offered incentives, including installation of a fiber optic network, underground utilities, street improvements and other perks. She said she did not think tax incentives were offered.

Said City Manager Donna Landeros: “We’re disappointed. We certainly would have preferred that they maintain their headquarters here. But we also recognize their need to be competitive.”