CEAT Ltd.
CEAT, India’s second largest two-wheeler tyre company, has signed an exclusive distribution partnership with Pirelli. Pirelli was once the owner of CEAT – Cavi Electrici e Affini Torino SpA – but RPG acquired CEAT in India in 1982. Nevertheless Pirelli continued to hold the global rights for the brand until five years ago.
The two-wheel segment is a growth area for India’s Ceat Ltd; the tyre maker reports that its share of the two-wheeler tyre market grew from eight per cent in the 2012 financial year to 14 per cent two years later. The company is now targeting the country’s scooter market with a new tyre range.
Regional government ministers in India met with tyre makers on 18 December to discuss rubber prices. Chief minister of the state of Kerala, Oomen Chandy has chaired a meeting which proposed a minimum guaranteed price for rubber growers – a price of around Rs 125 to 130 (£1.25 to £1.30) per kilogramme was suggested. In recent times the price paid to Indian rubber growers has dipped as low as Rs 90 per kilogramme, a price considered unsustainable.
On 11 December 2014, Indian tyre maker Ceat Ltd laid the foundation stone for its new manufacturing facility in Buti Bori near Nagpur, Maharashtra state. The stone laying follows the 30 October approval by Ceat’s Board of Directors to invest Rs 4.2 billion (£42.4 million) to set up a plant producing tyres for two and three-wheeled vehicles. The facility’s planned capacity is 120 tonnes per day.
At a meeting on 30 October, the Board of Directors of Indian tyre maker Ceat Ltd approved an Rs 4,200 billion (£43 million) investment to set up a new plant for producing tyres for two and three-wheeled vehicles. This planned facility is expected to have a daily capacity of 120 tonnes. It is understood that the facility will be built in the city of Nagpur, Maharashtra State, rather than in Karnataka State as originally planned.
Indian tyre maker Ceat Ltd. aims to build up a stronger presence in the European passenger car and commercial vehicle tyre markets in the coming years. As the company explained during Reifen 2014, its plan is to work together with local distribution partners for its Ceat and Alutra brands – using a separate partner for each – in a number of European national markets. Initial steps have already been taken and Altura-brand passenger car and truck tyres will thus be launched in Europe next year. From the products on Ceat’s Reifen show stand, it appears that both company brands generally utilise identical patterns.
The latest joint venture plant set up by India’s RPG Group and Sri Lanka’s Kelani Tyre will officially open next week, states Sri Lanka’s Daily Mirror. The publication says the Rs 600 million (£2.7 million) passenger car tyre radial factory, which is located at the existing Ceat Kelani site in Kelaniya, will enable the joint venture operation to increase its radial capacity by 70 per cent to 39,000 tyres a month.
The prices of shares in Indian tyre manufacturers have fallen back after rallying last week prior to the Easter weekend. According to local news sources, the shares of tyre companies plunged by up to 8 per cent each. The fact that one of the largest domestic tyre makers, MRF, reported a decline in net profit for the quarter ended March 2014 was said to have been the main precipitating factor.
The share prices of India’s leading tyre companies surged in value on Good Friday prior to the Easter weekend. Overall shares of Indian tyre companies shot up by up to 17 per cent, accompanied by heavy volumes reportedly due to “expectations of higher revenue growth during the current fiscal”, according to local news sources. Apollo Tyres, Ceat, Goodyear India, JK Tyre Industries, Balkrishna Industries and TVS Srichakra all rose by between 4 and 17 per cent each on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) during Friday’s trading.
Production capacity at Ceat Kelani Holdings’ site in Kelaniya, Sri Lanka will rise by almost 70 per cent following the entry into operation of a new plant dedicated to passenger car and SUV radial production. When the new tyre building machines and curing presses start production in April, CEAT Kelani will increase its radial tyre building and curing capacity from 23,000 tyres per month to 39,000. The facility has been established through an investment of Rs 600 million (£2.8 million).
Ceat Ltd reports that production has resumed at its Bhandup facility following the fire that broke out in the plant’s raw material store on 23 February. Company managing director Anant Goenka shared with India’s Business Standard that the cause of the fire is still unknown, however sabotage has been ruled out.
India’s Ceat Limited reported to the Bombay Stock Exchange today that nobody fatalities were caused by a fire that broke out at a raw material store in its Bhandup plant, and the main plant and the machinery within have not been damaged. Company secretary H.N. Singhrajpoot added that while production at the facility has temporarily been suspended, it is confident production will resume “at the earliest”.
Indian action film Dhoom3 will be released later this week and is said to be one of the most expensive films ever to come out of Bollywood. The sequel features plenty of motorcycle action, including a chase scene set in Chicago. Seizing the marketing opportunities this presents, Ceat Ltd has acquired the license from Yash Raj Films to produce a branded tyre – the first H-rated motorcycle tyre from an Indian manufacturer.
For Italy’s Marangoni Group, the decision about the future of its new tyre production plant in Anagni (near Rome) and its 400 employees was not an easy one to reach. Yet after many years of losses running into the millions and no prospect of this improving in the future, in September the company penned the final chapter on its almost quarter-century long engagement in new tyre production – and despite the difficult nature of this decision it comes as a weight off the shoulders for Marangoni’s management, and they are sanguine about devoting all their attention to the core retreading business in future and making strategic investments there. Speaking with Tyres & Accessories, Marangoni CEO Massimo De Alessandri explains what factors went into making the decision, which mistakes were made in the past, why the foray into new tyre production was understandable but – in hindsight –perhaps inadvisable, and what the Marangoni Group now plans going forward.
India’s Ceat Limited has reported a nine per cent growth in year-on-year revenues for the quarter ending 30 September 2013. On a standalone basis, revenues in this second quarter of the company’s financial year rose to Rs 12.63 billion (£127.6 million). Pre-tax profit rose from Rs 41 million in the second quarter of 2012 to Rs 1.1 billion (£11.1 million) in the most recent quarter. EBITDA for the second quarter of the 2014 financial year stood at 13.1 per cent, compared with 6.7 per cent in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.
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