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Unisys Plans to Close San Diego Operation in '06

Posted on: Tuesday, 4 October 2005, 12:01 CDT

By Mike Freeman, The San Diego Union-Tribune

Oct. 4--Unisys Corp. has sold its San Diego facility and plans to move operations to Orange County over the next year.

Kilroy Realty bought the 303,000-square-foot building on 20 acres in Rancho Bernardo for $24 million. Unisys, which employs 300 people in San Diego, will lease the building from Kilroy until next September, when it will close and consolidate operations in Mission Viejo.

Unisys, based in Blue Bell, Pa., is a $5.8 billion information technology consultant and maker of powerful computer servers. It has struggled this year for several reasons, including sluggish sales in its server business.

In San Diego, Unisys focuses on systems and technical support for high-end servers.

The company is talking with its San Diego employees but hasn't determined how many might be offered jobs in Orange County, said Elizabeth Douglass, a company spokeswoman. Unisys employs 600 at its Mission Viejo plant.

Unisys will make decisions regarding job transfers, if any, over the course of the next year, Douglass said.

For the first six months of this year, the company lost $72 million, compared with a profit of $48.3 million for the same period last year.

In a presentation to analysts, the company said it planned to cut overhead by 17 percent this year alone. It began a companywide cost-cutting drive last year.

Unisys is the latest in a string of technology companies that have either shrunk operations in San Diego or announced plans to do so. Others include Kyocera Wireless, which cut 875 jobs, Newgen Results, which slashed 239 workers and Intel's wireless group, which moved 169 jobs to Portland.

Employment in the county's computer and electronic equipment manufacturing industry is down from 26,400 in August 2002 to 24,800 in August this year, according to the latest figures from the state Employment Development Department. Jobs at software publishers have declined 11 percent during the same period, while telecommunications employment is off 6 percent.

Once Unisys leaves, Kilroy plans to redevelop the site, located at 10850 Via Fontera. The Los Angeles-based Real Estate Investment Trust intends to build 600,000 to 1 million square feet of offices.

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Copyright (c) 2005, The San Diego Union-Tribune

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune

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