Southeast Toyota Distributors LLC and its parent company, JM Family Enterprises, have cut 500 employees, or roughly 11 percent of their combined workforce. The majority of JM’s revenue comes from its Toyota business, though it also has finance and insurance units.
Southeast is the largest franchised distributor of Toyota s in the world. The 172 dealers in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina account for 20 percent of Toyota’s overall U.S. sales.
“Given these unprecedented challenges, we have had to make some of the toughest decisions in the history of our company,” President Colin Brown said in a press release.
Mr. Brown said his company is taking proactive measures to make sure it is aligned to realistic sales expectations. He said the U.S. new car industry has shrunk from 16 million vehicles annually to 10 to 12 million — and company like Southeast must quickly adapt.
Southeast was founded by famous automotive pioneer Jim Moran. Mr. Moran was contacted in 1967 by Toyota about setting up a dealer network in the southeast U.S. states. Toyota openly admits it owes much of its U.S. success to Moran, who helped infuse his marketing genius into the company’s North American operations.
Toyota has forecast a $5 billion operating loss for fiscal 2008 — a figure that should be reported soon. The automaker also reported a 37.3 percent sales decline for February.
