Expansion for Canadian tyre retailer through agreement
Canada’s Pneus Supérieurs and OK Tire Stores have entered into a strategic alliance that creates one of the largest networks of tyre and automotive service dealers in the country. Under the agreement, Pneus Supérieurs will join OK Tire Store’s network of independent dealers as an associate member and shareholder.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber will pay a quarterly dividend of US$0.05 per share of common stock, the tyre maker reported on 15 January. This will be paid on 3 March to shareholders who are of record as of 31 January 2014. The payout represents an annual rate of 20 cents per share.
In January, the Imported Tyre Manufacturers Association has welcomed two new members. Kenda has become the latest tyre maker to come on board, and is joined in the ITMA ranks by the Madrid-based National Association of Tyre Importers and Distributors (ADINE).
Mesnac consolidates regional operations into global tooling division
In order to consolidate its operations in the USA, UK, Slovakia and China into one single business unit, Mesnac has created a new global business, the Mesnac Tooling Division (MTD). This division will provide tooling support to Mesnac’s Tire Building machine divisions in China and Slovakia and to its subsidiary Beijing Jingyie. The divisions technology platform will be based on the established Wyko brand but will also control Mesnac’s other tooling brands, which are primarily sold in Asian markets.
Cooper not yet ready to resume financial reporting
Although production of Cooper brand tyres at the Cooper Chengshan (Shandong) Tire joint venture facility will soon recommence, Cooper Tire & Rubber has cautioned that returning to normal financial reporting may take a little longer.
Kumho Tire tipped to exit workout programme this year
Korea Investment & Securities anticipates that a continually improving financial position at Kumho Tire makes the company good value for investors. In comments published by English-language Korean ICT publication IT Times, analyst Kim Jin-woo said the tyre maker’s debt burden is falling rapidly, and he opines that this financial turnaround isn’t yet reflected in the current Kumho Tire share price. Kumho Tire thus has been given a “buy” recommendation by Korea Investment & Securities and the target share price has been set at KRW 16,000.
Continental’s newly-published provisional key figures for the 2013 fiscal year show the tyre and automotive component maker achieved an adjusted EBIT margin of 11.2 per cent, comfortably beating the target of at least 10.5 per cent set last November. Year-on-year sales increased slightly, rising from €32.7 billion to €33.3 billion.
As reported yesterday, Pirelli CEO Marco Tronchetti Provera, whose family holds the largest single stake in the company, plans a full departure from the company, first as CEO and then as shareholder. The only point we can now speculate on is the timeframe this will occur within; Tronchetti says he plans to take this step in 2017.
Was a rival Cooper bid the elephant in Apollo’s room?
As late as 15 November, Cooper Tire & Rubber wrote in a statement that it “continues to seek the expeditious closing of the merger with Apollo Tyres.” Yet Sunam Sarkar, chief financial officer at Apollo Tyres, opines that Cooper’s fidelity as a partner was in question from the very start – a point that only came to light later on.
Supertracker STR210R wheel alignment system a ‘little brother’ to flagship STR420
Southampton based wheel alignment equipment specialist Supertracker has recently added a brand new product to its product portfolio, while continuing to provide a high standard of customer training. While the new, “bridge model” STR210R model was initially previewed at the Commercial Vehicle Show in April, its introduction came into the second half of 2013, and […]
To mark his upcoming 66th birthday on 18 January, Marco Tronchetti Provera granted German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung a long interview. During this he shared his intention to step down as Pirelli’s chief executive in the coming two years and subsequently sell the family’s 25.1 per cent share in the company. His three children are following their own paths and anyway it is difficult to inherit the role of business entrepreneur. Until last year, Tronchetti was also engaged in a showdown with the Genoa-based Malacalza industrial family. Tronchetti originally invited the Malacalza family to become investors, but later Tronchetti gained the impression they were trying to oust him. In the course of this struggle Francesco Gori, in charge of Pirelli’s tyre business, lost his job. He now serves as an advisor to Malacalza Investitmenti, which is currently the second-largest Pirelli shareholder but openly interested in expanding its involvement.
Could new Hunter machine help increase breadth of servicing sales opportunities?
Maximising the revenue opportunities offered by services is a key part of any modern garage’s strategy. The reduced margins available on tyres – and the effective outsourcing of the tyre retail process to e-Commerce websites – mean that making the most of services such as wheel alignment and diagnostic checks has become increasingly important. Pro-Align, the distributor of Hunter wheel alignment equipment in the UK, has offered one complementary tool in the recent past to speed up the diagnosis of misaligned wheels, the Hunter Quick Check, but the most recent innovation is the Quick Check Lane – a modular diagnostic system that allows garages to add brake and battery performance checks, in addition to tyre pressure and tread depth measurements to the alignment diagnosis procedure. Tyrepress visited Pro-Align’s recently refurbished and reorganised unit near Towcester, Northamptonshire to see the new unit in action, while business managers Paul and Kathryn Beaurain explained the background to the latest wave of Hunter equipment innovations.
Just after the summer of 2013 PanAridus reported that it had broke an industry milestone, becoming the first bio-agricultural company to produce sufficient quality and quantity of guayule rubber samples in-house for commercial testing and use.
A webcast of Goodyear Tire & Rubber’s business overview and strategies will be held on 14 January; the live audio webcast of executive vice-president and chief financial officer Laura Thompson’s 40 minute presentation at the 2014 Deutsche Bank Global Auto Industry Conference in Detroit, US can be viewed from the http://investor.goodyear.com and will be available 1:35pm local time (6:35pm GMT, 7:35pm CET) on 14 January.
While shares in Cooper Tire & Rubber have begun 2014 at roughly the same price they traded for a year earlier after climbing as high as $34.79 and dipping to $20.55 in between, former prospective purchaser Apollo Tyres’ share price has risen to an all-time high following the breakup of negotiations between the two companies […]
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