Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Sprint Nextel Corp., slashing costs after losing wireless customers, will move its corporate headquarters back to Kansas and abandon a plan to split executives between two locations after a 2005 merger.

To save on travel and real-estate costs, a ``small number'' of executives will move to Overland Park, Kansas, from Reston, Virginia, outside of Washington, the third-biggest U.S. wireless carrier said today in a statement. Sprint was based in the Kansas City suburb before it bought Nextel Communications Inc.

Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse, who replaced Gary Forsee in December, is seeking ways to reduce spending after the company lost 1.2 million contract customers last year. Hesse announced plans last month to eliminate 4,000 jobs and close about one- fifth of Sprint's retail locations.

Leigh Horner, a Sprint spokeswoman, declined to say how much the company would save with the move. Sprint may consolidate its 4,400 Washington-area employees into fewer buildings, she said. The company has 13,300 workers in the Kansas City region.

Sprint rose 14 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $10.13 at 4:01 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have dropped 23 percent this year.

Following the $36 billion purchase of Reston-based Nextel, Sprint installed top executives, including Forsee, in the Virginia headquarters and left marketing and network managers in Kansas. Customers have since defected to larger rivals AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, complaining of dropped and distorted calls and poor customer service.

Born in Kansas

Sprint claims Kansas as its birthplace, tracing its roots to the Brown Telephone Co., founded in Abilene in 1899, according to a history on its Web site. A series of mergers and acquisitions led to the current incarnation of the company, which spun off its home-phone unit in 2006 to form Embarq Corp.

Hesse, 54, moved to Sprint from Overland Park-based Embarq, where he had started an effort to cut 1,000 jobs. Last month, he ousted three Sprint executives, including Chief Financial Officer Paul Saleh.

Activist investor Ralph Whitworth, who has urged Sprint to keep more subscribers, joined Sprint's board yesterday. His Relational Investors LLC holds 1.85 percent of the stock. Director William Swanson, the CEO of Raytheon Co., won't seek re- election at the annual meeting in May, Sprint said today in a regulatory filing.

To contact the reporter on this story: Crayton Harrison in Dallas at tharrison5@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 13, 2008 16:07 EST