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Micheldever’s Up For Sale, But Who’s Buying?

When you consider that they paid £85 million for Micheldever Tyre Services (MTS) in 2006, it is no surprise that equity house Graphite Capital is willing to sell the company now it is in the position to command a £200 million price tag. Back then Graphite were cast as the backers for a management buy-in/buy-out that kept the independent tyre wholesaler in independent hands and out of the corporate grasp of ‘big business.’ Now it seems that the motivation to sell the UK’s largest single tyre wholesaler (along with its 50 Protyre retail depots) emanates primarily from the same equity house that kept it in the hands of its managers four years ago.

Micheldever Tyre Services is said to have started out in a shed in 1972. Over the next 34 years Tony Todd grew the company into a market leading independent wholesaler with a loyal customer base. By the time he sold it in 2006, MTS had become a truly multi-million pound business, with the staff count reaching over 550 people, sales reaching £148 million annually and pre-tax profits amounting to £5 million a year. Since then turnover and staff levels have almost doubled to £275 million and 900 people in 2009, with MTS particularly benefitting from its exclusive distribution of some leading upper mid-range products during the recession.

19th April 2010/by Tyrepress Editors

RUD-Erlau to Show Tyre Protection Technology at Bauma

RUD-Erlau, purportedly the inventor of the tyre protection chains (TPC), is to show it most advanced technology at this year’s Bauma show in Munich (19 – 25 April 2010, C2 Booth 311/406). According to the company, RUD-Erlau’s TPCs are more than doubling the kilometres-life of costly OTR/earthmover tyres and aiding mobile plant safety in mines, quarries, steel foundries, demolition, scrap handling and glass recycling. Furthermore, the cost-benefits of RUD-Erlau TPCs are said to include: up to 7 times increased tyre life, assured plant availability and significant savings per tonne.

11th March 2010/by Tyrepress Editors

E-Tailers and Autocentres are on the Up

Editorial/Comment, UK News

What will the tyre retail business look like in five years time? Who knows. As I have learnt to my peril in this column, prognostication is a dangerous business. Let’s not recall how last year I wrote “unless there is an unlikely stay of execution” regarding the implementation of s-marking regulations (see T&A’s August 2009 issue for more on this). But I digress.

The news at the end of February that Halfords bought Nationwide Autocentres for £73.2 million (see page 14 for complete coverage) says something about how tyre retail is evolving. Along with the purchase announcement came plans to rebrand the chain and the affirmation of existing plans to double the number of branches to 424. When you consider that the second largest tyre retail chain in the country, ATS Euromaster, reported that it was “reviewing” up to 80 of its 456 branches last September, it is clear that size gap between chains at the top of the two sectors is narrowing. True, Autocentres don’t focus on tyre sales like the traditional outlets do, but there are signs they are considering how to increase their focus in this area.

2nd March 2010/by Chris

Low Sidewall Titan Loader Tyre Offers Cost Savings

During a conference call on February 25, Titan International chairman and CEO Maurice Taylor Jr. disclosed that the company intends to produce its first 73.5-inch low sidewall OTR tyres by April. Prototype 73.5 steel wheels have already been produced at Titan’s wheel production facility in Quincy, Illinois, and preparations for the tyre are now underway at the company’s Bryon, Ohio factory.

2nd March 2010/by Tyrepress Editors

Blackcircles.com Advertises on Tesco Forecourts

In January this year, online tyre retailer continued its strategy of merging traditional and online marketing methods by delivering promotional material to 20 Tesco Petrol Stations around the UK. According to the e-tailer’s website, the company’ s communications and promotion manager covered over 1000 miles in five days, visiting selected Tesco stores. His objective was to introduce the company to Tesco Staff, while delivering A5 fliers, putting up posters and checking air pump advertising fascias which had been put up the previous week.

19th February 2010/by Tyrepress Editors

What's in a Name Change? Continental Tire the Americas Explains

Previously known as Continental Tire North America, the new name for the passenger, light truck and commercial vehicle tyre divisions in the region is now Continental Tire the Americas LLC. The change was made to better reflect the growth of the tyre maker in both North and South America, the company said this week.

9th February 2010/by Tyrepress Editors

UK Tyre Recovery Sector Fights Illegal Operations, Slim Margins

After experiencing more than a year of general economic recession, the UK tyre recovery sector enters 2010 functioning at roughly full capacity, with around 500,000 tonnes of tyres being collected last year. This puts tonnages on a par with the latest complete data compiled by the Used Tyre Working Group in 2008. However, while the UK has managed to limp out of recession with tyre recovery tonnages generally intact, there are signs that the same market pressures that have put the squeeze on new tyre profit margins are putting pressures on the collection part of the tyre life cycle too; and that regulation-dodging is still a problem.

So, while its good that tonnages in 2009 were relatively stable, the bad news is that illegal tyre collection and disposal activities are rife. What’s worse is that they complexity of such schemes has developed to the point that the disruption caused by rogue “white van man” collectors is now at the bottom end of a wide spectrum. This means large scale scam disposal rings and – in some cases – even franchise operations that are in operation taking money from tyre dealers, but not properly fulfilling their duty of care obligations.

28th January 2010/by Tyrepress Editors

Bigger is Dumber

Editorial/Comment

In a recent speech given to the Professional Contractors Group (PCG), legendary tyre retail mogul Sir Tom Farmer warned would-be entrepreneurs against having simplistic, size orientated goals for their businesses. The Kwik-Fit Founder may have sold a 700-branch strong tyre retail chain to Ford for £1 billion in 2001, but for him size isn’t everything. He might not be Warren Buffet yet, but Scotland’s own oracle of Edinburgh had this sage advice: “bigger is dumber.”

PCG is apparently the biggest organisation representing freelancers in Europe, so it sounds like Sir Tom was preaching to the choir with his message of the importance of building businesses on a core group of key employees, and then outsourcing the rest. However, as virtually all the global tyre manufacturers are now demonstrating in their collective quest to make an increasing amount of high-performance tyres in low-cost countries with less human intervention, full-time employees are expensive and an inevitably long-term investment. And, as most national tyre retail chains will concede, running large networks such as theirs is a similarly complicated business.

2nd December 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

UK Company Offering Tyre Scrubbing Technology

In motorsport, the scrubbing of tyres – running the tyres for a couple of laps and leaving them to cool and cure – is a fairly common practice used to improve dynamic performance, grip, tyre life and lap times. UK firm Tyre Technology Ltd. already supplies machinery that can replicate this process to motorsport teams. For the first time, however, the company is making its Black Frequency system available for rental to any interested party.

1st December 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Conti Releases Winter Guide for Europe Bound Drivers

UK and Irish truck and coach operators driving on Continental roads this winter can benefit from a new guide Continental Tyres has released. The guide outlining the various tyre requirements they can expect to encounter in Europe has been updated for the 2009/2010 winter season and can be downloaded free from Conti’s UK website.

27th November 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Michelin Releases Centennial Guide to Germany

Just to show it isn’t all sausages, sauerkraut and tankards of beer quaffed by men wearing lederhosen, Michelin has been producing its guide to Germany for a whole century. To celebrate a hundred years of pointing Teutonic gourmands in the right direction, next year’s edition of the Michelin Guide Germany will, in German speaking markets, come complete with an extract of the original 1910 “Deutschland and Schweiz” guide. On top of this, one new two-star and 23 new one-star restaurants joined the list of fine-dining establishments in the 2010 guide. In all, the 1,440-page tome includes 1,515 restaurants and 4,332 hotels across all comfort and price categories. The centenary guide goes on sale November 13, 2009.

12th November 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Tawse Tyres Invests in Tyreman Upgrade

Tawse Tyres of Inverurie, Aberdeen has upgraded its existing Tyreman systems to the company’s version 12 program. Bryn Jones of Tyreman said: “One of the reasons why Tyreman is so popular with ambitious retail tyre chains and independents is because we work closely with each company to ensure they maximise the opportunities the software provides.”

20th October 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Online Tyre Sales Still a Mid Range Market

With 70 per cent of us now having access to the Internet, and consumers making an average of 2.1 virtual purchases a month, maintaining the right online presence is as important as ever. According to the 2009 Oxford Internet Survey, the two most common online activities are researching product purchases and actually buying them (about 80 per cent of web users having done each). However with a multitude of distractions out there in cyberspace, tyre businesses have developed complex e-marketing strategies designed to lure customers to their sites with low prices, before up-selling them onto more expensive products. Some of the clearest evidence to date shows that the Internet is an increasingly competitive mid-range market, not a budget bargain basement as some say.

Comparing online price monitoring data with the results of market research conducted by Encircle Marketing shows that national fast fits continue to be the most expensive places to buy, with tyres costing £86.22 between January and August 2009. No surprises there. The fact that tyres are cheapest at pure e-tailers (£65.91) on average, won’t surprise many either. In fact, with the exception of average prices at autocentres rising to meet those at car dealerships (£78.68 and £79.18 respectively) the pattern is pretty much the same as it was last year.

2nd October 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Etyres Reports Increased Sales Despite Recession

There may be a recession on, but without giving any specific figures away, etyres is reporting year-on-year sales growth in the last 12 months. Combining mobile fitting with a successful website, etyres describes itself as the UK’s first online tyre company. But it’s not just the company that speaks highly of itself, the most recent Plimsoll report into the UK Tyres, Exhausts & Batteries industry said etyres’ sales growth and profit margins “are better than the industry’s largest player.”

Managing director Tony Bowman, commented: “We have put down deep roots in the Internet tyres industry and this has enabled us to grow stronger and faster than our rivals. We began operating as Fleet Mobile Tyres back in 1992, but later recognised the potential to sell to the public through the exciting new market place – the Internet. Everything, from our use of familiar faces, like Eamonn Holmes and Vicki Butler-Henderson, in our videos, to our tyre price comparison chart, is aimed at showing the customer they are in the hands of experts.

1st October 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

RUD-Erlau Gains Stream of New Orders

Fresh from an order to fit several sets of tyre protection chains for load-out duties at an Iraqi cement plant, RUD-Erlau, reports that service is the key to gaining new orders in straitened times. With its customers in mind, RUD-Erlau recently has invested 10 million euros in extending and up-grading the facilities at their plants in Germany, Romania and Brazil.

A family-owned company with a 130 year history in industrial chain making, RUD-Erlau’s sales manager
Francesco Di Giusto heads a 24 strong team of qualified engineers with a wealth of experience in the world’s materials handling industries. According to the company, their combined knowledge of mining, quarrying, slag handling, demolition, forestry and other wheeled operations ensures that customers receive expert support throughout – from choosing the right tyre chain for your application – to installation and life-of-product after-care. This they say is what keeps orders coming in a recession.

21st September 2009/by Tyrepress Editors