Italian firm buys Diamond Phoenix

LEWISTON — Diamond Phoenix, a 60-year-old company on Alfred Plourde Parkway that designs, manufactures and installs material-handling systems, has been bought by an Italian company. Diamond Phoenix is expected to stay at the location and remain, at least initially, under the same name.

“We are happy to now be a part of a company with such amazing capabilities. I really think we are well positioned to bring our customers material handling systems unmatched in the industry,” Tom Coyne, president and CEO of Diamond Phoenix, stated in a news release posted on Diamond Phoenix's Web site. Coyne was not available for comment Monday.

The company was purchased by Systems Logistics, a division of System Group S.p.A., a $500-million-a-year industrial trading company based in Modena, Italy, according to Modern Materials Handling, a periodical covering the materials-handling industry.

Systems Group has four divisions. Other than the logistics division, the company is reportedly best known for specialized equipment and machines for the ceramic tile industry. It is also involved in the electronics circuit board industry and the solar energy industry, according to Modern Materials Handling.

In his blog for Modern Materials Handling, Bob Trebilcock, who interviewed Coyne, wrote that the Systems Logistics division generates about $125 million a year, roughly five times the revenue of Diamond Phoenix.

Diamond Phoenix, founded in Lewiston in 1946, is listed as having 1,000 employees by the professional networking site Linkedin.com.

According to Modern Materials Handling, in the short run, Diamond Phoenix will continue to operate under that name, and the management team will remain in place.

Trebilcock said Coyne expects to go to market under the Systems Logistics name. For now, Coyne told Trebilcock, “My job is going to be to communicate these new capabilities to our customers in North America.”