Report: ATM maker NCR may move to Georgia

Rumors are swirling around Dayton, Ohio, that automation giant NCR will move its world headquarters to metro Atlanta in the coming days, but top Georgia officials on Sunday were either silent or vowed ignorance.

NCR, which produces ATMs and business automation equipment, announced a 900-job expansion into Peachtree City and Duluth in November 2008. The Dayton Business Journal on Sunday reported that local and state officials there are scrambling to discover if the $5.3 billion-a-year company has plans to relocate 1,300 employees and its headquarters to Georgia.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, the newspaper reported, had attempted to speak with NCR CEO Bill Nuti over the weekend, but the two were unable to connect.

However, according to a copy of Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue’s schedule, obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution through an open records request, Perdue and Nuti spoke by phone at least twice in recent months.

A spokesman for Perdue, when asked about those calls, responded that the company had announced an expansion in 2008. Perdue communications director Bert Brantley on Sunday, however, declined to comment about the Dayton Business Journal’s report.

Fayette and Gwinnett county officials said late last week, when the rumors first began to circulate, that they either had no details or were not aware of a planned NCR expansion.

State Rep. Ron Stephens (R-Savannah), the chairman of the House Economic Development and Tourism Committee, said Sunday he had not heard anything specific about NCR, although he has heard the rumors.

State Sen. Don Balfour (R-Snellville), whose district includes parts of Duluth, also said he had not heard anything about NCR.

Balfour said the state economic development team is “really good at … telling you something good is about to happen, but ‘we can’t tell you what.’ I haven’t even heard that.”