Continental Archives - Page 219 of 228 - Tyrepress

Hannover-based Continental AG is a leading automotive supplier and – according to the company – is “the choice of leading car manufacturers, offering award-winning tyres that deliver responsive braking in all weather conditions.”

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Continental’s Results Have Slowed Down And Redundancies Are Possible

Compared to last year, Continental Group’s turnover for the first nine months of 2001 has increased from 7,438 billion Euro to 8,240 billion Euro (a rise of about 10.8%). The Group’s operational result (EBIT) of 238 million Euro (385 million Euro in 2000) has especially been affected by the North American tyre business and a non-recurrent expenditure of 58 million Euro due to the reconstruction process, begun in the second quarter and which has resulted in the closure of the truck tyre production site in Herstal (Belgium) and the remoulding site in Bad Nauheim. The Group’s result before tax has fallen by 160 million Euro down to 96 million Euro. After tax of 44 million Euro, the result is 104 million Euro more than last year’s amount, and the earnings per share are 0.35 Euro (1.16 Euro in 2000). Presenting the quarterly results at a press conference, Manfred Wennemer, who was appointed Managing Director on 11th September 2001, explained the Group’s directional change, concentrating on profits, results and cash flow and on cutting down financial debts, which also involves focusing on profitable transactions and devolving profit-and-loss responsibility on to the Business Units. Additionally, Wennemer announced some bigger restructuring measures: “All parts of the company are under scrutiny, and there are no holy cows”, he emphasised, adding the comment that factory closures and redundancies could be a possibility.

30th November 2001/by Tyrepress Editors

Acquisition Of Two Japanese Brake Manufacturers By Continental

Continental Teves (Frankfort) – part of Continental AG (Hanover) – responsible for brake business, at the end of March, acquired two Japanese companies engaged in this field. The companies are Shin-Ei and ShinTec, former subsidiaries of the Mazda Motor Corporation. Continental’s Board Member, Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart, responsible for Continental Teves, said that this acquisition is another important step toward the goal of becoming a system supplier for mechanical and electronic brake systems in the markets of Japan and Korea.

30th November 2001/by Tyrepress Editors

Strengthening of Continental Brake Business

Continental Teves plans a joint venture with the Shanghai Automotive Brake Company (SABC) – subject to the approval of the Chinese authorities. The aim is to provide the market with a complete brake systems package from one source. SABC already manufactures Continental Teves brake components under license, and produces components for both Volkswagen and General Motors.

30th November 2001/by Tyrepress Editors

Memorandum of Understanding signed by Continental

Tyre manufacturer Continental and the Moscow Tyre plant have signed a memorandum of understanding which says that Continental will gradually acquire a majority stake in the Russian tyre plant. The company plans to invest 43 million US-Dollars within the next three years, in order to modernise production at the plant and to supply passenger car and light truck tyres of the company’s Continental, Gislaved and Barum brands to the local Russian market.

30th November 2001/by Tyrepress Editors

Additional Orders From Ford For Continental

Continental has announced that it has received an additional order from Ford for over 2 million car tyres. Whether or not this is at the expense of Firestone is unclear. Continental now claims to be one of the biggest tyre suppliers for Ford in Europe, if not the biggest. In the US the tyre manufacturer is in dire straits. The Continental General tyre company is facing a loss in the US this year of up to 100 million Euro despite the fact that Continental also took advantage of the Firestone recall on the US replacement market. It is expected that Continental General will make another loss next year of up to 50 million Euro. The company also announced a restructuring program for the North American tyre market, aimed at saving costs of 90 million Dollars within 3 years. Presently Ford is not accepting General tyres as OE in the USA after the NHTSA said that the claim rate of the General Ameri 550 S is much higher than the Firestone tyre, which it replaces.

30th November 2001/by Tyrepress Editors

Acquisition In The Automotive Field Planned By ThyssenKrupp

Last year there were rumours concerning a possible hostile takeover bid for Continental by ThyssenKrupp. However, ThyssenKrupp was not able to bring its steel subsidiary company to the stock exchange as planned and it seemed that the acquisition pressure had been halted. On January 15th, the ThyssenKrupp management mentioned during a press conference that they are planning “a bigger acquisition in the automotive field”. No further details were made available.

30th November 2001/by Tyrepress Editors

Cooperation Bandag/Continental Brings Only Advantages

Ron Carver (Bandag) and Dr. Nikolin (Continental) said during a joint press conference held in Hanover, that the cooperation creates a win-win-situation. On the one hand there will be a quality product and on the other hand the franchise net is, according to Carver, strong enough across Europe to guarantee deliveries in the shortest possible time. In the Precure Retreading market more and more customers are insisting on having their own casings retreaded.

30th November 2001/by Tyrepress Editors

8th Tyres/Chassis/Tracks Conference in Hanover

Home match for Continental: Not enough that the company’s head of Tyre R&D and Process Engineering, Heinrich Huinik, had been the chairman of the organising committee for the 8th VDI (association of German engineers) Tyres/Chassis/Tracks conference, the tyre manufacturer, which, after the reorganisation process in recent years regards itself as a whole service supplier, had been on the agenda for both several specialised and the two plenary lectures too. Thus, it was no surprise when, using the slogan”Global Chassis Control”, Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart, member of Conti’s Executive Board, again picked out their system network as a central theme in his plenary lecture. Another main topic of the conference in Hanover was the specialised field of “System Integration” which had twice the number of lectures than all other specialised meetings, titled “Track-Tyre-Interaction”, “Tyres”, “Tyre Modelling”, Chassis Simulation” and “Chassis Systems”.

30th November 2001/by Tyrepress Editors

New UK Truck Servicing Network For Continental

Continental Tyre Group is to set up a new UK truck network, comprising independent businesses with exclusive territories, managed by Continental. This will obviously affect the commercial division of Conti’s subsidiary National Tyre Services. Some will be sold, while some will be taken over by existing staff – a number of these are expected to join the new truck network, which will be called ContiNetwork.

30th November 2001/by Tyrepress Editors

Results Cannot Disguise Weak Period For Continental

In the first half of 2001, the group achieved a turnover of 5,498 million Euro; 12 per cent better than for the same period last year. EBIT came down from 267 million to 158 million Euros due to the closure of plants in Herstal (Belgium) and Bad Nauheim (Germany). Without these, EBIT would have been 58 million Euro better. The truck division shows some very bad figures; turnover is down 8 per cent to 438 million Euro and instead of an EBIT of 33 million Euro (2000), the group has made a loss of 37 million Euros. The tyre situation in America is even worse – despite a slight increase (+1 per cent) in turnover to 839 million Euro, the group made a loss of 53 million Euro. A year ago, the EBIT was +20 million Euro. Continental Automotive Systems boasts an increase in turnover of 31 per cent to 1,960 million Euro, but without the acquisition of Temic, the increase would have been 18 per cent. On the other hand, the EBIT improved by only 3 million Euro to 57 million Euro. The ContiTech business was, as always, very good, but ContiTech is up for sale. The division turned over 933 million Euro and achieved an EBIT of 81 million Euro. The Continental board remains optimistic that it will achieve not only a turnover for the year as a whole of more than 11 billion Euro, but that it will also improve the previous year’s EBIT.

30th November 2001/by Tyrepress Editors

Going Down In The USA: Continental General

The US business of the German group is in trouble. In the 4th quarter Continental General suffered an operating loss of 17 million Euro, making an operating profit for the whole year of 12 million Euro. This is around 50 million Euro worse than in 1999, which was itself a bad year. Turnover for the year as a whole rose by 18 per cent, helped by the Firestone tyre recall. The question remains whether the US arm of the German tyre manufacturer is too small to be successful in the world’s biggest market?

30th November 2001/by Tyrepress Editors

No Agreement Signed Yet

Continental has not been able to sign – as planned – a contract with Moscow tyre plant. Weeks ago the company said it would invest 43 million US-$ over the next 3 years into Moscow tyre plant, making Continental the majority shareholder. The company now says that as yet there are some legal questions unanswered and it is sure to sign the contract within the next few weeks.

30th November 2001/by Tyrepress Editors

New Communications General Manager At Continental

Dr. Heimo Prokop (43), director of communication at VAW Aluminium AG (Bonn/Germany), is to become the new director of communication of the Continental Group, Hannover, beginning the new job on 1st April at the latest. He succeeds Peter Schwerdtmann, who has already left the tyre manufacturer. Prokop’s main task will be the internationalisation and intensification of the communication activities of the Continental Group, underlining that it has changed from a pure tyre producer to a company that also offers chassis management solutions.

30th November 2001/by Tyrepress Editors

Cooperation Between Continental And Yokohama Intensifies

Continental and Japanese tyre manufacturer Yokohama, who already operate a plant together in the USA, producing truck tyres, want to intensify this cooperation. They want to create a 50-50 joint venture in Japan by the end of the year, merging their Japanese activities and focussing on their Japanese OE customers. Yokohama will also help Continental increase its replacement market business. In addition, the two companies want to work more closely together in production in the NAFTA area and are looking at potential synergies, in areas such as purchasing.

30th November 2001/by Tyrepress Editors

A Question Of Grip: The Conti Winter-Roadshow 2001

Time has come for German car drivers to renew their acquaintance with the cold season. Using their annual country-wide winter roadshows, Continental’s experts are explaining the aim and object of winter tyres with their better grip on low temperature roads. Because of a special compound – in contrast to summer tyres –they are made as flexible as possible for road temperatures below seven degrees, in order to produce enough grip when starting, braking or cornering. This flexibility ensures the necessary traction of the tread on asphalt, snow and ice. There are more and more car drivers who realise that adapting to winter tyres has more advantages than merely better grip; a view which is supported by constantly rising sales figures over recent years. Whereas in 1997 30 million of these winter specialists were sold all over Europe, demand rose to 37 million last year. In some European countries even more winter than summer tyres have been sold so far. Thus, last year’s winter tyre market share was about 40% in Germany, 59% in Austria, 57% in Switzerland and 61% in Sweden. About 16 million winter tyres were sold in Germany alone last year. The reason for this demand is the increasing number of new cars with their more powerful engine performance. The trend towards higher performance cars causes the consumer to order winter tyres designed for speeds over 190 km/h. Another reason: car drivers want fun when driving even in the winter, as long as road and weather conditions are appropriate. If possible, they choose tyres of the same size and speed rating as their summer tyres. Also, research by Continental reveals that fun-driving in winter need not be more expensive. Winter tyres will cost about 0,20 Euro each day in use.

30th November 2001/by Tyrepress Editors