According to news published by Reuters, Pirelli & C SpA is not interested in acquiring the tyre business of Continental AG. The news service reports that a comments to this effect were made by Pirelli chairman Marco Tronchetti Provera on February 11. During a press conference Tronchetti Provera said the Italian company was instead focusing on stand-alone growth.
Following the release of Toyo’s latest financial results, the company has announced a host of measures to stem its financial haemorrhaging. The company reports being in the midst of business conditions that it expects will grow ‘more stringent’ and be reflected in further deteriorating earnings for the 2008 financial year. The sources of these woes, the company adds, are the global economic slowdown and the yen’s appreciation.
Toyo reports a review of its Japanese and international manufacturing systems is underway, and on the back of this it will reduce the number of employees at manufacturing operations to match current production levels. As part of its reorganisation, Toyo says it plans to transfer employees from administrative departments to manufacturing departments.
The 16th European Conference on Tyre Recycling, taking place in Brussels on 25-27 March, 2009, will focus on the “Economics of a Recycling Society,” according to information released by the European Tyre Recyclers Association. Discussions will take place about the growing importance of waste recycling materials, beginning – naturally – with waste tyres, and their use in application, consumer and industrial products to replace virgin resources. There will also be a presentation of studies on tyre recycling materials and their employment in the road and civil engineering sectors, rubberised bitumen and asphalt, buildings and concrete, thermoplastics and thermal and acoustic insulation.
The conference will also exhibit tyre recycling products, such as rubber kerbs and rubber tiles for urban furniture or sport facilities, rubber flooring and artificial turf; present a poster show about innovations in tyre recycling products and materials by industry, universities and technical centres; and host a Technology and a Pyrolysis forum with round table discussions on technology and new uses for recycled tyres.
Business owners and senior managers from nearly 70 Michelin accredited independent truck tyre distributors across the UK and Republic of Ireland gathered in Paris on 30 January for the third annual Michelin Business Advantage (MBA) dealer conference. What the representatives from the MBA network heard during their time in France was music to the ears in these difficult times for the automotive sector.
“The latest figures from Europool highlight that whilst the replacement market for new truck tyres dropped by 10 per cent in the UK in 2008, Michelin continued to gain market share and is still the number one selling brand,” said Phil Baldock, MBA manager at Michelin. “We also bucked the trend in the market for retread tyres, with our penetration increasing in a marketplace which also fell by 10 per cent.
At the JP Morgan High Yield Conference on February 3, Goodyear Tire & Rubber discussed industry conditions during the final quarter of 2008 as well as the corresponding production cuts it undertook during the period.
“It is widely known that the economic slowdown is having a considerable impact on consumer demand and industry volume,” said Goodyear executive vice president and chief financial officer Darren R. Wells. “Fourth quarter industry volumes were well below expected levels, prompting a significant increase to our production cuts that now extend across all business units.” Wells said that Goodyear is responding ‘aggressively’ to the 2009 environment with additional cost savings and inventory reductions. “We continue to adjust production to reduce inventory levels and to keep pace with the lower demand environment.” The company plans to announce a series of new actions on its full-year conference call, scheduled to be held on February 18.
Cooper Tire & Rubber Company has informed interested parties that the company is to announce its 4th-quarter/year-end 2008 financial results before the market opens on Thursday, 26 February. Company management will discuss the financial results in a conference call beginning at 11:00 Eastern Standard Time (16:00 GMT) on the same day. The call will be webcast on the manufacturer’s investor relations webpage at www.coopertire.com. The webcast will be available until the following Thursday, 5 March.
HiQ bosses recently held the retail network’s first National Franchise Conference. The leading fast fit retailer organised a franchise networking event at the impressive Crewe Hall venue in Cheshire, where the company’s recently named new managing director, Juergen Titz, outlined HiQ’s vision to grow in the fast-fit and vehicle servicing market. The event gave HiQ the opportunity to have an open dialogue with its franchisees and inform them of the types of services open to them, such as online ordering technology, marketing support and new corporate identity graphics.
Despite trading in an unprecedented economic downturn, the company remained extremely upbeat about its future, mainly because of its National Franchise Programme. HiQ’s franchise structure is the only one of its kind in the fast fit industry, with 130 sites now run by 41 franchisees. By the end of February, this figure will rise to 138 sites and by the end of 2009, it is hoped that 170 centres will be franchised.
The US market is a significant one for the automotive industry, and therefore annual the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit remains an important date in the motoring calendar. Prominently exhibiting at this year’s show is Michelin, and the president of the company’s worldwide passenger car and light truck tyre business, Florent Menegaux, has taken hold of the opportunity afforded by the Detroit show to discuss Michelin’s technological direction.
“Michelin’s approach to technology is to drive improvements in different areas of performance sometimes seen as incompatible,” said Menegaux during a NAIAS press conference. “The strength of Michelin’s capacity for innovation lies in the ability to produce tyres that deliver not only energy savings but also enhanced safety and long-lasting tread life, ensuring the consumer does not have to sacrifice key performance features for energy-efficiency.
Pelmar Engineering has announced that it is to hold its annual conference in Hamburg, Germany this year. The company is holding its conference alongside Tire Technology Expo 2009. According to a statement on the matter, the 2009 conference is the first time that the event will be held outside of Israel. “The main reasons are the vast international expansion and the increased sales and engineering contracts signed in Europe,” the statement explained.
The TIA has announced that, due to the current economic situation and other factors including the increased cost of shipping, it is regretfully cancelling the 2009 Retread Appearance Contest that was planned in conjunction with the 2009 TIA Commercial Tire & Retread Conference (CTRC).
One of Asia’s premier natural rubber events, the ASEAN Rubber Conference 2009, is to be held between June 18 and 20, in Vientiane, Laos. The promoters describe the conference as a one-stop-centre for the natural rubber industry players to learn, experience and network.
The objectives of the ARC, the organiser adds, is to bring together both regulatory authorities and commercial players of the rubber world to provide updates on current trends and future challenges faced by the naturally rubber industry, to facilitate the exchange of ideas and insight into the global rubber industry and the price discovery of rubber
Cooper announced today that it plans to close its manufacturing facility in Albany, Georgia. The company states that the announcement “follows a network capacity study analysing the company’s optimal manufacturing footprint in the United States.”
Tire Review, based in Akron, Ohio said that the move was announced during a conference call with employees at all four of Cooper’s U.S. plants. Cooper will retain its plants in Findlay, Ohio; Texarkana, Arkansas, and Tupelo, Mississippi. As reported on Tyrepress.com, Cooper announced in October that it would review the viability of its U.S. capacity, with an eye towards closing at least one plant. An announcement on the result was not expected until January, but the decisions may have been hastened by the new union contracts and incentives the state of Mississippi is expected to extend to the tyre maker.
Almost one in ten cars examined by ATS Euromaster as part of a recent unscheduled tyre safety inspection were found to have at least one tyre which was at or below the legal limit of 1.6 millimetres or another similarly major defect. The surprise car park inspection saw technicians record the tyre tread depth and overall condition of each tyre on 147 cars at a popular conference venue in Birmingham.
Following the inspections, technicians left advice cards warning drivers about their tyre condition. Fourteen vehicles (9.5 per cent) were in red condition, according to the company’s traffic light scale, with one or more tyres at a tread depth at or below the legal limit of 1.6mm, or with a serious defect requiring immediate attention. A further 15 vehicles (10.2 per cent) received ‘amber’ warnings – typically tyres where the tread depth is getting low (2mm or below) or with defects requiring attention. The remaining 118 cars (80.3 per cent) had tyre tread depths above 2mm on all tyres, and no obvious defects.
A glimpse at what year-end 2008 and 2009 has in store for Titan International has been provided in a company statement by chairman and CEO Maurice M. Taylor Junior. “It has been a remarkable year for Titan and its employees,” noted Taylor. “No one outside of this corporation will ever know how great this team of Titan employees are.
“In the past two months I’ve visited the oil sands, mines, farm equipment dealers, farmers and executives of major farm original equipment manufacturers,” he added. “It’s hard to believe with all the gloom on Wall Street, television and clueless politicians’ commentary that 2009 should be a great year, but that is what I see.”
The world’s second largest Automechanika show opens in China on December 10 at the Shanghai New International Expo Center. During the three exhibition days a record number of exhibitors are expected to showcase their products in the centre’s eight halls, an 80 per cent increase in exhibition space compared with 2007. Visitor numbers are also expected to exceed last year’s figure.
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