Northrop headquarters to move to Virginia

Virginia has won the fight to be the new home of Northrop Grumman Corp. The defense giant, now headquartered in Century City, said Monday that it would settle in the Falls Church area outside Washington.

Northrop announced in January that it was moving east to be closer to its key customer, the U.S. government. Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia had been vying to land the company.

Not all the 360 employees at the Century City office will get offers to move with the company.

“There will be some reductions as we move from 360 to 300 people,” said Randy Belote, a Northrop spokesman.

And some of the personnel for the new office might be drawn from other company operations, he said. Northrop has about 40,000 employees in the Washington area.

The company, which was founded in 1939 in Hawthorne, has about 30,000 employees in California, most of which are in the Southland.

“Northrop Grumman is proud of its longstanding involvement with Los Angeles,” Chief Executive Wesley G. Bush said in a statement. “We will continue to have a strong commitment to Los Angeles and the region and look forward to working with them for many years.”

william.hennigan@latimes.com