The sharp drop in prices of Goodyear shares over the past three months has put extreme pressure on Goodyear’s top management. Possible reasons for the drop include increased raw material costs and apprehension among shareholders that the Dunlop acquisition could have a negative impact on results in the year 2000.
After good a result for 1999, Vredestein NV has reported losses for the first half year in spite of satisfying results in the tyre business sector. The main reason for the bad figures was given as the consequences of an acquisition by subsidiary company Hevea, a producer of boots.
Edouard Michelin has confirmed that Michelin will go ahead with plans to reduce its European workforce by 10%, referring to the initiative as “not just a cost-cutting plan or headcount reduction. It is a productivity plan that has an upside of speeding up growth. In the same interview, Edouard Michelin said that tyre industry consolidation was not at an end. Michelin, he said, will eventually have to make “some kind of link, alliance, or even acquisition” in Asia. He also suggested that medium-sized tyre companies will “either merge or join the club of the large companies”.
The German supplier of various items of equipment for the tyre shop, MAHA (Maschinenbau Haldenwang), has acquired lifting platform specialist Slift. With this acquisition, MAHA staff numbers increase to 1,000.
Since its acquisition of what was Euzkadi in 1998, Continental General Tire is the leading tyre manufacturer in Mexico. Recently, ContiTech began construction on a factory in San Luis Potosi to make technical products for the Nafta region and Continental Teves intends to build a factory at Silao in Mexico to manufacture wheel revolution sensors.
Bridgestone Corporation has acquired control of a Chinese manufacturer who produces radial passenger and commercial tyres from the Republic of Korea’s Kumho Industrial Co. The company has a current production capacity of about 3.5 million tyres a year.
Continental has announced it will be acquiring a 15% share in Indian tyre manufacturer, Apollo Tyres. According to Indian media sources, the acquisition will enable Continental to build up a technological relationship with the Indian tyre market and there are plans to develop a truck tyre factory on a greenfield site in Pune. At the moment, neither Continental or Apollo Tyres have confirmed the partnership.
Smith’s Wheels U.K. have announced the acquisition of the assets, brand name and tooling of Wolfrace Wheels.
Although a joint venture between Continental and Pirelli could make sense in the tyre sector, observers do not believe it. The Italians, in any case, deny it vehemently. While the German group is still recovering from the enormous effort of the Teves acquisition, the Italians are about to concentrate more on entering the real estate business. An extremely nervous reaction came from Pirelli Reifenwerke managers, who do not like such talk in the market, especially since they have enough to do looking after themselves. Sales boss Röske speaks in eloquent terms of the lustre of the Pirelli tyre brand that makes his team’s “eyes shine”. The brand, he says, is stronger than “our customers sometimes want to give us credit for”. In Röske’s opinion Continental may perhaps have tried to throw dust in people’s eyes to divert attention from a potential takeover by Bridgestone. This magazine rather thinks that Conti boss Kessel wants to avert the public gaze from talks with the telephone group Mannesmann, which is possibly ready to part with its automotive division.
Goodyear reports a net profit of 97.2 million US $ for the third quarter of 1999 compared with 185 million US $ in the third quarter of 1998. The turnover achieved in the third quarter of 1999 was 3.3 billion US $, 100 million US $ more than in the same period last year. The turnover contribution of its recent acquisition, Dunlop, amounted to 200 million US $ worldwide.
If you would like the latest news from the Chinese tyre industry in Chinese, visit our partner site TyrepressChina.com. Or click below to continue on Tyrepress.
