Tyre industry jobs, appointments and personnel-related information.
Yokohama Rubber’s North America division, Yokohama Tire Corporation, has announced two new executive appointments: Naoki “Nick” Takeda, executive vice president and chief financial officer; and Taketoshi Morita, vice-president, OE business.
At present, Heuver Tyrewholesale is forming a customer support ‘expert team’ for the German speaking markets, and Gert Timmer, who currently manages the company’s agricultural business unit, will take on responsibility for the Bavaria and Austria regions as part of this team. He joins four other experienced customer support professionals in the new German markets team, and will be present with his colleagues at November’s Agritechnica show.
Effective 1 January 2014, Patrick Olney will take on the role of chief operating officer at TRW Automotive Holdings. In his new position, the current president of Volvo Construction Equipment will report directly to TRW Automotive chairman and chief executive officer John Plant. Olney will be based in Michelin, USA, and replaces Steve Lunn, who previously announced his intention to retire effective 28 February 2014.
As part of its efforts to build up its online presence, Giti Tire has appointed Neil Hendry to the newly created role of Internet Strategy and E-Commerce manager – Europe. Hendry is based at the company’s UK headquarters in Cheshire and responsible for the development of a coherent web and social media strategy to maximise internet presence throughout the continent
Steven J. Borick intends to retire as chief executive officer and president of Superior Industries International early next year, and the company’s board has commenced a search for his successor. Borick will relinquish these three roles at the US-based aluminium wheel manufacturer on 31 March 2014, however he will remain chairman and assist with the management transition.
At a meeting of the Pirelli & C. SpA Board of Directors on 21 October, Claudio Sposito and Paolo Fiorentino were co-opted as members to replace Vittorio Malacalza and Giulia Maria Ligresti, whose resignations from the board were announced on 10 May and 24 July respectively. The vacancy following the 16 October resignation of Carlo Salvatori remains open for the time being.
Netherlands-based wholesaler Heuver Tyrewholesale has appointed two new account managers for Germany, Detlev Schwarznecker and Sebastiaan Vlierman.
Pirelli & C. Spa has announced the resignation of Carlo Salvatori from the company’s Board of Directors. The company thanked Salvatori for his contribution, adding that he explained when resigning that it was “due to the recent increase in the number of his professional commitments.”
Goodyear has reshuffled its global leadership resulting in a new head of the company’s Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) business unit. Darren R. Wells, who up till now has acted as the company’s global CFO has been named president of Goodyear EMEA. Arthur de Bok, currently president of this business, will move into the new role of senior vice president, responsible for driving standardized and integrated sales and marketing processes across Goodyear.
Tyrepress launched a new newsletter product in February 2013 aiming to improve the targeted job advertisement opportunities offered by Europe’s leading English language magazine and website for tyre and wheel professionals. The weekly newsletter, which also collates the most recent Career Tracks news every Wednesday, will continue to link to greatly improved listings on the relaunched Tyrepress website, putting advertisers’ job vacancies in front of the widest possible range of European tyre and wheel professionals.
Micheldever Tyre Services has appointed Lorna Craig as the company’s new Kumho brand manager. Craig was previously charged with the development of Micheldever’s business and brands in Scotland where she was an area sales manager. Wholesale sales director Alan Baldwin stated the company’s delight in her appointment, saying her previous experience had “made her the perfect choice for what is one of the most important roles within the MTS business.” Micheldever says it is Europe’s largest distributor of Kumho tyres, evincing the importance of Craig’s new position.
The latest tyre market data published by Michelin is being read as a warning signal by market analysts. The figures, which reflect demand trends in December and for 2012 as a whole suggest tyre sell-in unit volumes were weak. European light vehicle replacement sales, specifically, continued to slip (-7%), despite falling 19 per cent year—on–year in December 2011. Overall this is being interpreted as a response to a poor winter tyre season.
Continental AG expects its full-year 2012 free cash flow to come in at around 1 billion euros. Speaking at an investor’s presentation in New York, Conti CEO Dr Elmar Degenhart upped its previous assessment of about 750 million euros by a third. The statement came as a surprise to financial analysts and apparently even for the CEO himself, who reportedly only found out in the last few hours.
Recent reports published by financial analysts suggest Goodyear could be forced to restructure its business in the Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.
Reporting on an investor’s presentation given in Detroit, Deutsche Bank market watchers relayed that Goodyear cautioned that financial targets established two years ago – specifically US$1.6 billion segment operating income by 2013 – would be “difficult to achieve if current European market trends persist”.
Financial analysts has spoken of Cooper’s confidence in its continuing business outlook following presentations to investors at a Detroit roadshow.
Explaining their renewed confidence, the analysts put this down to “notably improved” product mix, cost competitiveness and recent pricing activity. As far as the import question of how Cooper will fair post import tariff, the Deutsche Bank analysts highlighted that since the tariff was implemented, “the cost of producing tyres in China has increased faster than other regions (the cost gap was 30 per cent at the time of tariff implementation but has declined to a 10-15 per cent).
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