Phoenix Group expands, may add 200 jobs

The Phoenix Group, a Greenwood-based supply-chain services company, said yesterday that it has added 15 employees within
the past month and plans to hire about 200 more workers by the end of 2010.

About 75 to 100 of those new jobs
could be added in Greenwood, the company said.

Currently, Phoenix has about 200 employees, including 150 in Greenwood.
Founded in 1995, the company provides supply-chain services for the automotive, retail, oil, health care and construction
industries. It had revenue of about $70 million last year.

Phoenix’s growth plans got a boost from a multi-year
contract the company recently signed with HEB-Mexico, a large Mexican grocery chain, to coordinate the shipment of construction
materials for new stores and remodeling projects.

As part of the contract, Phoenix will open a facility in Monterrey,
Mexico, later this month. The company already has facilities in Charleston, S.C., and Houston.

The Mexican facility
will help Phoenix land additional contracts from U.S. customers that do business south of the border. The company is already
in negotiations with several large retailers in Mexico and the United States for additional contracts, it said.

The
company added 10 employees at its Greenwood headquarters and five in Houston in the last month. Jeff Wells, director of the
company’s logistics division, said the jobs pay between $30,000 and $70,000 annually.

New jobs will be spread
out between various Phoenix facilities, he said.

"Even though our economy is in a recession, the grocery retail
industry is booming right now because people are eating out less and going to grocery stores more," Wells said.