Continental Denies Shareholding in Apollo Tyres
Continental has denied reports in Indian newspapers that it has a 15% shareholding in Apollo Tyres. Continental is in talks with other companies in India but the results will not be announced until later this year.
Continue ReadingReifen Junginger Under The point S Roof
Speculation is now at an end: on 14th April, the German tyre sales company Reifen Junginger was sold. The new owner is Josef Herl, MD of point S Reifen Herl GmbH and one of the founders of sales cooperative Partner GmbH. Herl plans to completely restructure the new point S Reifen Junginger over the coming months.
Continue ReadingGoodyear Optimism Boosts Share Price
Goodyear recently turned in a bullish report on its first quarter performance. The market was impressed, as the companys shares rose 47% from its 52-week low in March. Industry analysts predict a good performance from Goodyear in the short term, with shares rising further.
Continue ReadingOnline-Tyreshop From Continental
During the annual shareholders meeting of Continental, the tyre manufacturer announced that it is going to build up an online tyre shop which will go live at the beginning of next year. At first he offer will contains passenger car tyres and service, and later complete wheels and car accessories will be included.
Continue ReadingBest-Ever Result for Dunlop Germany
Deutsche Dunlop GmbH, part of the Goodyear Dunlop Tire Group (Western Europe), has announced a record turnover in 1999 of 835 million Euro and a net profit of 63.3 million Euro. The operating profit was 12.5% of turnover. Dunlop Germany invested 68.5 million Euro, which represents 8% of turnover. The company has capital of 300 million Euro. Whilst employment in the rubber and tyre industry in Germany has decreased over the last ten years by 30%, Dunlop has increased its number of employees by 21% over the same period to 5,176 at 31st December 1999. The income of the four directors was excellent, averaging 2.9 million marks each as recognition of delivering outstanding results. From a German standpoint it is worth noting that the management have boosted location Germany. They showed the business world that it is possible to achieve excellent results in a German environment. The management remains optimistic for the future. Finance director, Dr. Volker Wingefeld, said that Dunlop expect to achieve results for this year comparable to those of 1999. The work of marketing director Dieter Seibert should also be mentioned. The Dunlop brand is stronger than ever before in Germany. The willingness to buy Dunlop is increasing significantly. Until last year the management held a press conference every year in Frankfurt, close to Hanau. Now, as part of a much bigger group, they are calling it a press-breakfast to get their message across.
Continue ReadingGoodyear’s Turnaround Delayed?
A Deutsche Bank analyst raised the Goodyear rating to buy because he believed in a turnaround story. Some analysts agreed, others saw Goodyear shares still only as neutral. But now it is different. Based on the latest statements from Goodyear, there are massive doubts regarding volumes and whether the pricing trend will be favourable. Analysts now believe that the situation will not improve before next year and that Goodyear shares will remain low.
Continue ReadingOff-Take Agreement Between Nokian Tyres And Michelin
Nokian Tyres announced an off-take agreement with Michelin, mostly for heavy tyres but also for car tyres. A month ago, Continental also seemed to be interested, but obviously finished runners-up.
Continue ReadingMerger Of Arvin And Meritor Completed
Arvin Industries and Meritor Automotive, among other things an important steel wheel manufacturer, have now merged to form ArvinMeritor, thus creating a $ 7.5-billion automotive supplier. ArvinMeritor has formed a corner module assembly group to integrate its complete line of undercarriage components.
Continue ReadingFord’s Behaviour Examined More Critically
Ford has conceded that it was aware of problems with Firestone tyres in Venezuela as long ago as 1998. Ford CEO Nasser admitted two weeks ago that, in Venezuela, not only had the tyres been changed, but modifications had been made to the vehicle suspension. Analysts said that attempts to place the entire responsibility upon Firestone have failed.
Continue ReadingTyreCheck 2000 Results From NTDA
The National Tyre Distributors Association held a press conference to reveal the results of its TyreCheck 2000 campaign. This was part of a wider European initiative to increase tyre awareness and collect data in support of a campaign to increase the legal minimum tread depth. The UK campaign lasted a week and over 37,500 tyres were checked. A depressing 10% were below the 1.6mm legal minimum and a further 17% had tread depths below 2mm, which is the level being proposed as the new legal minimum. 26% were damaged in some way and 46% incorrectly inflated. Spare tyres were also checked and 33% of these had a tread depth below 2mm. 66% were wrongly inflated. In a telephone survey of people who had recently bought tyres, 75% did not know the legal tread depth and 43% said they check their pressures regularly; a figure not borne out by the above statistics. It is planned to repeat the exercise next year, hopefully on a larger scale, and the results will be used to lobby individual governments and European authorities through Bipaver for a change in the tyre laws in Europe.
Continue Readinglusive License To Kuhl Wheel Technology For Hayes Lemmerz
Hayes Lemmerz and The Epilogics Group have announced that Epilogics has granted Hayes Lemmerz worldwide exclusive rights to the Kuhl Wheel technology. The Kuhl Wheel design integrates the hub and spokes into a one-piece stamping. Using standard steel rims, these wheels weigh significantly less than conventional steel wheels and allow greater flexibility in wheel trim design.
Continue ReadingNine-Month Figures From Nokian
Nokian Tyres has released figures for the first nine months of the year. Sales rose 29.9% to 258.6 million Euro (199 m for the same period 1999) and operating profit fell to 11.9 million Euro (18.4 m). Net profit was 2.7 million Euro (9.9 m).
Continue ReadingUS Survey Of SUV Tyres Puts Bridgestone Top
For a change, some good news for Bridgestone regarding SUV tyres. The Bridgestone Dueler AT 693 came out top in a survey of SUV tyres in US magazine Consumer Reports. The tests for the all-terrain tyres included wet and dry braking, emergency handling, noise, rolling resistance, traction in snow and braking on ice. The Bridgestone tyre was followed by (in order) Kelly Safari AWR, Dunlop Radial Rover, Cooper Discoverer A/T, Firestone Wilderness AT II and Goodyear Wrangler AT/S. In a separate table of all-season SUV tyres, the BFGoodrich Radial Long Trail T/A came top.
Continue ReadingLaw Suit Has Little Chance of Success Say DaimlerChrysler
DaimlerChrysler have said that they regard the nine billion Dollar law suit by its third largest shareholder, the Tracinda Investment Group, as completely unfounded. The lawsuit alleges that DaimlerChrysler have deliberately deceived the US Stock Exchange Control Institution as well as the shareholders. Analysts predict that this law suit has little chance of success. Although Deutsche Bank, the main shareholder of DaimlerChrysler, have demonstratively supported the management, the car manufacturers share price went down significantly to 45.85 Euros.
Continue ReadingOut of Sight – Out of Mind
According to results from Tyrecheck 2000, carried out by Police forces throughout the UK, as many as one in ten cars on UK roads may be running on illegal tyres, 27% are, at best, close to the end of their safe and legal life. That’s in excess of 13million illegal tyres in use every day. Imagine then the figures for faulty shock absorbers hidden out of sight? Recent research carried out in the UK suggested that over 6 million out of 25 million (24%) cars on the road were running on at least one faulty shock absorber. Belgian research confirmed that this is not purely an UK problem when figures produced there showed 20-25% of motorists driving with faulty dampers. If the car driver is unaware of a problem, how can the industry realise the potential sales in the shock absorber aftermarket? The market is estimated by Datamonitor to be worth in excess of 124M Euro at Retail Selling Price (RSP) in the UK alone, and across Europe has a value of some 471M Euro at Manufacturer Selling Prices (MSP). How does the fast fit salesman persuade the customer that he needs a new shock absorber? Moreover, how does he persuade him that he needs to change a pair? More about this can be found in the December issue of TYRES & ACCESSORIES.
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