Africa
Exports of Apollo Tyres’ products to Sri Lanka have begun following the beginning of a working partnership with local Mitsubishi distributor United Motors. According to the head of International Marketing at Apollo, Rajesh Kumar, the company hopes to export six containers of truck, bus and passenger car tyres to Sri Lanka every month.
An expedition of Land Rover enthusiasts, supported by Goodyear, has completed its mission to travel 6,500 miles for a range of charitable causes across Africa. The team set out from Goodyear’s Birmingham head office, as reported on Tyrepress.com in early January, and finished in Timbuktu having donated their vehicles, along with educational and medical supplies, to good causes along the way. The charities included Sightsavers International in the Gambia and Mali, Operafrica in the Gambia and Village by village and Sabre Charitable trust in Ghana. In total eight vehicles were donated to help the charities conduct their work.
Goodyear supplied the vehicles with the brand’s market leading 4×4 tyres, the Wrangler MT/R. For such a dynamic range of terrain from roads and gravel to deserts and flood plains, the vehicles really needed high performing tyres for their journey. Having been used previously on the Land Rover G4 Challenge, the Wrangler’s ability to traverse the toughest of terrains with its reinforced side walls and aggressive shoulder blocks gave the required performance in the vast range of conditions the team encountered.
Following yesterday’s announcement that the company had sustained fourth quarter net losses of $1.37 per share and that net revenues had also fallen 19.9 per cent year-on-year to $4.1 billion, Goodyear’s full year results for 2008 revealed the extent to which the fourth quarter was down on 2007, showing a mere 1 per cent drop from the previous year’s record sales of $19.6 billion. The manufacturer also reported that it had seen increases in Goodyear-branded market share. However, the company’s statement on the figures took the opportunity to announce Goodyear’s plans to freeze salaries, cut an additional 5,000 jobs – though it is yet to be decided which markets will see these job losses – and sell non-core assets in an effort to cut costs and operating expenses by $700 million during 2009 fiscal year.
Reacting to the news, an analyst report from Deutsche Bank reported “positive signs” from the results, saying that the Q4 loss could be viewed as “a respectable result considering that global volume
(-19 vs. our -10.5 per cent estimate) and overhead under-absorption (-$213MM vs. our -$144MM estimate) deviated negatively against our assumptions.” Countering the 19 per cent drop in global volume, which Deutsche’s report called “a bit unsettling,” was the bank’s long-term prediction that shows Goodyear making a 54 cent profit per share in 2009 and $2 in 2010. It backed up these estimates by pointing towards the acceleration of “the bottom-line benefit of fixed-cost reduction” in 2009; the reduction of tyre companies’ capacity in general, leading to better “price discipline”; and that Deutsche analysts believe “tyre companies, including
Goodyear, are poised for a pretty big improvement in gross margins in the back half, as they benefit from plummeting raw material costs.”
Continental has announced that, as of 1 March 2009, Nikolai Setzer will take up the temporary management of the manufacturer’s Car Tyre Division. He will continue to head up the Replacement Business Car and Light Truck Tyre Division Europe and Africa positions he presently occupies, though there will be no change in structure between the sectors. He will report to Dr Hans-Joachim Nikolin, the board representative of the Commercial Vehicle Tyre Division and – provisionally – the Car Tyre Division.
Specialty chemicals producer Cabot Corporation announced on January 28 that reduced sales have caused its fiscal first-quarter profit to drop 88 per cent versus the previous year. In hand with this news, the company announced it would cut 500 jobs, some 12 per cent of its workforce, as part of a comprehensive restructuring plan.
Net sales of US$652 million were recorded in the first quarter of fiscal 2009, compared with $711 in the first quarter last year. This represents a decline of 8.3 per cent. Net income for the quarter was $4 million, as opposed to $36 million in Q1 2008.
After more than three decades in the industry the managing director of Goodyear South Africa is to retire. Derek de Villiers, 61, will be replaced in April by current Dunlop Germany managing director Jean-Jacques Wiroth.
The appointment was announced by Goodyear’s Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa region president Michel Rzonzef. “Derek has been a strong leader for many years, both in South Africa and the Middle East. He is highly regarded by his peers both inside and outside the company. We thank him for his very considerable contributions,” said Rzonzef, paying tribute to de Villers’ 34 years with the company.
Graham Rowntree, England assistant coach and scrummaging coach for the British & Irish Lions tour to South Africa this summer, has launched the IRB Rugby Ready Programme in association with Goodyear at Willenhall RFC near Wolverhampton. More than 30 aspiring coaches received training during the three-hour session in match preparation, techniques and injury prevention and management.
IRB Rugby Ready is a programme developed by the International Rugby Board and run in England by the RFU in association with Goodyear and Sport England. The programme is designed to support coaches, referees, players and Unions in preparing to play by providing best practice models for physical conditioning, technique, injury prevention and injury management.
Rowntree was joined by Goodyear managing director Mark Brickhill as they launched the partnership and met those participating in the unique scheme which aims to train around 4,000 coaches nationwide within the next 12 months. Brickhill believes the IRB Rugby Ready in association with Goodyear scheme fits perfectly with the company’s self-styled image as an expert in safety.
On 16 January Pirelli inaugurated its new Pirelli Tire Campus in Yanzhou, Shandong. Pirelli China CEO, Giuseppe Cattaneo commented: “The inauguration of the Tire Campus has further marked the commitment of Pirelli to play a leading role in the tyre industry especially in the high end segment. Apart from the tyre industry, the auto industry including OE customers and Car Concessionaires will also benefit from Pirelli Tire Campus’s training program and better equipped with advanced tyre technology and professionalism.”
Together with its Tire Campus Training Centre at the Istituto Piero Pirelli in Milan, the new initiative is a reflection of the effort Pirelli Tires has put on the continuous training of its internal and external resources as a fundamental element for continuous product and technology innovation of Pirelli Tires.
Michelin Training Instructor Nigel Williams has returned from a visit to Zambia, during which he put his hand to reducing one of the country’s greatest causes of death. The 35-year old from Uttoxeter travelled to the African nation for a two-week assignment with the international development charity Transaid. Williams provided tyre related driver safety training for commercial vehicle driver instructors at the Industrial Training Centre Trust (ITCT) in the Zambian capital, Lusaka.
Giniel de Villiers has emerged triumphant in the Dakar Rally – the first South African to do so – thus ending Mitsubishi’s seven-year domination of the event. In another first, his VW Touareg was the first diesel-powered car to win the Dakar.
Bienes Turgon, S.A., a Mexican holding company with interests in the automotive industry through its subsidiary Katcon, S.A., has announced the acquisition of Delphi Corporation’s global exhaust system business in its entirety. The transaction, covered by a Master Sale and Purchase Agreement and financed with an equity increase and existing cash reserves, is expected to be closed during the first half of 2009.
On January 14, Continental AG announced a partnership with Emirates for Universal Tyres LLC for the distribution of passenger and light truck tyres as well as commercial vehicle tyres in the United Arab Emirates. These activities are to be coordinated from the representative office of Continental’s new MENENA business unit, which focuses upon business development in the Middle East and the North Africa region.
The circumference of the earth at the equator is a jot under 25,000 miles (or a tad over 40,000 kilometres, for those of you playing in metric), and even if it was possible to drive a vehicle around the world at its broadest point, the tyres would probably be a little less than pristine at the end. Not so for a Suffolk based Volvo FH12 Globetrotter XL 6×2 tractor unit fitted with a set of Michelin XDE2 drive axle tyres – while the vehicle admittedly hasn’t plied the roads of Africa, South America and Southeast Asia and driven through the world’s major oceans, the Michelin shod tractor unit has indeed travelled the equivalent of 18 times round the equator.
A book on Microcylcus uleï, the parasite fungus attacking South America’s rubber trees, has just been published by the International Rubber Research and Development Board (IRRDB) and the Common Fund for Commodities. It has been compiled following the international work group that was organised at Michelin’s Bahia Plantation in Brazil from November 26 to December 2, 2007. The book lists what is known about the disease and how to fight it.
Beginning at Goodyear’s Birmingham head office, 20 fundraisers have set off on an epic journey to Timbuktu, distributing supplies to various charities across Africa, supported by the manufacturer. Over the next four weeks a team of drivers will be giving educational, medical and general supplies to schools, hospitals and charities. Their eight vehicles involved in the challenge will also be donated to good causes including Opera Africa, Sight Savers, Village by Village and Sabre Trust to help support their vital community work.
Goodyear are key supporters of this charity event, with all of the vehicles kitted out with the brand’s market-leading 4×4 tyres. With a range of often challenging terrain to tackle, Goodyear’s off road tyre, the Wrangler MT/R, will help the team on its travels. Using reinforced sidewall technology, an aggressive tread block design and shoulder blocks the company says the tyre will increase traction and mud dispersal in all conditions. Its sidewalls protect the tyre from punctures or damage, resulting in a tyre which really can cope with the demands of the most hard core environments.
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