LOS ANGELES _ Candy maker Nestle USA is moving its headquarters from the Los Angeles area to Virginia.
The company, which is a subsidiary of Switzerland food giant Nestle S.A., said its new home will be in Rosslyn, Va. The move will start later this year and be completed by the end of 2018.
Nestle has 1,200 employees in the LA-area city of Glendale. About 90 percent of the workforce _ or roughly 1,100 _ is eligible to be relocated; 750 jobs are moving to the Washington area and 300 are moving to Ohio, said spokeswoman Edie Burge.
On Wednesday, Nestle said the move will enable the company to operate more efficiently and be closer to its "business and stakeholders." It said that 75 percent of its factories and 85 percent of its top customers are located in the eastern half of the U.S.
"This location allows us to be closer to our business operations, our customers and other important stakeholders," Paul Grimwood, chief executive of Nestle USA, said in a statement.
Nestle has already moved some business out of Southern California in recent years. In 2014, the company closed a production plant, shifting operations to an existing facility in Kentucky with lower costs.
The jobs moving to Ohio will go to the city of Solon, which has become hub for the company's frozen and chilled food business. A few employees will also be transferred to other facilities, including St. Louis, where information technology operations are being centralized.
Nestle's move is just one of several major corporations that have chosen to leave Southern California for a new home elsewhere.
In 2015, Irvine chipmaker Broadcom Corp. became incorporated in Singapore instead, with its operating headquarters moving to San Jose. The year before, Toyota Motor Corp. said it would move its sales and marketing headquarters to suburban Dallas from Torrance, and Occidental Petroleum Corp. moved its headquarters from Los Angeles to Houston.
