April 10 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp., mired in its worst slump in North America since at least 1980, may combine management of its U.S. sales and assembly companies under a former executive, people familiar with the plans said.

The shift will put the units under one chief executive for the first time, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the move isn’t public yet. The job will go to Yoshimi Inaba, a past president of the U.S. sales division, the people said.

Incoming president Akio Toyoda is bringing in new top executives as the company grapples with a plunge in the U.S. market, its biggest source of profit until the last fiscal year. In addition to Inaba, who now heads Central Japan International Airport Co., the company said today it will rehire Masamoto Maekawa and Yasumori Ihara as senior managing directors.

“Toyota is marshalling all available resources under the new president,” said Yuuki Sakurai, general manager of financial and investment planning at Tokyo-based Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance Co., which manages $54 billion in assets. “It’s like wartime and Toyota is taking advantage of wisdom of people who experienced a tough time in the past.”

Inaba would take over at the New York-based holding company in a new role in which he would supervise the other divisions, one of the people said. The North American company is now led by President Shigeru Hayakawa. The world’s largest automaker meshed leadership for regional units in Europe in 2005 and in Japan in 1982.

“We rehired them because they are necessary in the severe management environment,” said Keisuke Kirimoto, a Toyota spokesman.

Profit Streak Ends

Toyota Motor North America has been a largely ceremonial corporate umbrella over Toyota Motor Sales USA and the North American manufacturing unit, which each have their own management and report to the parent company in Toyota City, Japan.

Toyoda, who becomes Toyota’s new CEO in June, has promised “bold reforms” at the company, which has said it expects its first net loss in six decades, a deficit of 350 billion yen ($3.5 billion) in the year ended March 31.

Plunging Sales

U.S. and Canadian sales tumbled 20 percent in the period, the biggest drop in regional sales data dating to 1980. That opened the way to bring Toyota Motor Sales USA under the new structure, a move it has opposed, the people said.

Irv Miller, group vice president for communications for Toyota Motor Sales USA, said on April 8 he was unaware of a U.S. management-combination plan and called such a step “unlikely.”

The company said in February it would rehire Inaba, 63, to help improve North American operations, without saying what his role would be. He was a Toyota director until 2007, when he left the carmaker to be president of Central Japan Airport.

Yukitoshi Funo will be promoted to executive vice president from senior management director to oversee government relations and overseas sales. Funo is now in charge of Toyota’s U.S. sales arm.

The Detroit News reported on April 7 that Toyota planned to streamline the management of its U.S. operations, and the Wall Street Journal said yesterday that Inaba would be named as the new head of Toyota Motor North America as early as today. Both stories cited people familiar with the situation who weren’t identified.

Toyota’s U.S. sales unit is based in Torrance, California. The manufacturing and engineering group is based in Erlanger, Kentucky.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Ohnsman in Los Angeles aohnsman@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 10, 2009 03:17 EDT