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Nautilus Hyosung which is scheduled to complete its purchase later this month of Triton Systems of Delaware Inc., announced Friday it is expanding Triton's Long Beach, Miss., operations and Memphis, Tenn., service center.
The company expects to increase the workforce at those facilities but did not say how much it is investing. The expansion appears likely to lay to rest gossip that Nautilus Hyosung planned to pack up Triton's manufacturing business and ship it to Korea.
"There have been a lot of rumors. One had us closing on a certain day," James Phillips, Triton director of North American sales, tells ATM&Debit News. "Nautilus Hyosung realizes how strong the Triton brand is in the United States, and Nautilus wanted a strong American presence."
Larry Barnett, executive director of the Harrison County, Miss., Development
Commission, where Triton is based, was pleased with the announcement. "Triton's
expansion is clearly good news for our area," Barnett said in a statement, "and their plans to establish a research and development center in Long Beach increase the value and importance of this project." Research and development centers generate high-paying jobs that will benefit the community, he said.
The research and development center in Long Beach is part of Nautilus Hyosung's plan to sell ATMs to U.S. banks, Phillips says. Until now, the company and Triton have concentrated on the off-premise ATM market, which includes machines at drugstores, restaurants and convenience stores.
H.S. Cho, Hyosung Group's executive vice president of corporate strategy,
said the new entity created by combining Nautilus Hyosung America and Triton will compete with the world's three largest ATM manufacturers– NCR Corp., Wincor Nixdorf AG and Diebold Inc. (ADN, 9/4). Hyosung Group is a $7 billion diversified manufacturing company based in Seoul, South Korea.
P.K. Ryou, CEO of Nautilus Hyosung, Friday reiterated that the research and development center and expansion of the Memphis service center would help Nautilus Hyosung become a global company.
The companies are studying three scenarios for the Long Beach site, Phillips says. They include expanding the 38,000 square-foot administrative building to house the research and development center. The companies also are considering moving the administrative offices to the 90,000 square-foot plant four miles away and installing research and development there. Workmen would have to expand the plant to accommodate the larger offices.
"We're looking at the possibility of putting everything under one roof," Phillips says.
The company also could expand both locations. Triton's human resources department is preparing to hire an undisclosed number of
engineers for software development, Phillips says. Triton employs 400 workers.
The company also plans to expand its Memphis facility to provide a basis for the
two companies' nationwide service infrastructure, and it will handle parts and repair
for Triton and Nautilus Hyosung products.
Nautilus Hyosung and Triton are the two
largest manufacturers of off-premise ATMs, but Nautilus Hyosung has sold an undisclosed number of ATMs to Citibank, which the bank deployed in some branches (ADN, 6/12).
The Memphis Triton facility is a parts warehouse, technical-support center, and
repair and training facility. Phillips said he did not know how much money Nautilus
Hyosung will invest in Triton's Long Beach and Memphis facilities or when construction might begin.The announcement of the
research and development center and the expansion of the Memphis facility follows an announcement last week of the two companies'
plan to build a low-end, off-premise ATM. Nautilus Hyosung is scheduled to
complete the purchase of Triton from its parent New York-based Dover Corp. later
this month or in early October. Nautilus Hyosung America Inc., a subsidiary
of Nautilus Hyosung, operates a facility in Coppell, Texas.
