Another California company has announced its decision to move all operations outside of the state.
Yamaha Motor Corporation, known for creating motorized vehicles like motorcycles and WaveRunners, is set to relocate its headquarters to Kennesaw, Georgia, after more than 45 years in Cypress, California, where it first opened an office in 1979. The company, a subsidiary of the Japan-based Yamaha Motor Company, already had a sizable presence in Kennesaw, having moved its marine business in 1999 and later its motorsports business units there.
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The shift includes the sale of all property in Cypress, which includes around 25 acres of offices and warehouses that housed mostly “corporate functions and the Financial Services business.”
The move is expected to happen slowly, with a completion goal of 2028.
“Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. is undertaking structural reforms aimed at improving the profitability of its U.S. operations in response to cost increases resulting from U.S. tariffs and changes in the market environment,” the company wrote in a statement detailing the move.
With these changes, the company hopes to be a “more resilient and robust organization,” the news release said.
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More and more companies have been exiting California in favor of new headquarters in recent years. Several have decamped for Texas, including Public Storage, which announced plans to move just last month, and big tech companies like Tesla and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Others have reduced their workforce locally, including 27 Amazon offices that have eliminated more than 1,000 workers, according to an analysis of recent WARN filings by SFGATE. Business leaders often cite the difficulties of doing business in California, even those that have so far kept their companies in the state, including In-N-Out heiress Lynsi Snyder.
