(Akron/Tire Review) Goodyear and Cooper will both announce their third quarter financial results in coming weeks. Goodyear plans to release its financials before the markets open on October. 30. Cooper will wait until after the SEMA Show and release its financials before the markets open on November 6.
The acquisition of steel cord manufacturer Rongshen Chengshan Steel Cord by ArcelorMittal, announced on October 15, includes the 25 per cent stake in the Chinese company held by a wholly owned local subsidiary of Cooper Tire & Rubber. Cooper has disclosed it received US$7.4 million for its quarter share, which the manufacturer parted with in order to place a greater focus upon its core tyremaking business.
Cooper Tire’s acquisition of 51 per cent of Cooper Chengshan (Shandong) Passenger Tire Company, Ltd., and Cooper Chengshan (Shandong) Tire Company, Ltd., was completed in early 2006 and included a 25 per cent ownership position in the steel cord factory, which is located adjacent to the tyre manufacturing facility in Rongcheng City, Shandong Province.
A1GP Chairman, Tony Teixeira, has announced a “ground breaking partnership” between Ferrari and the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport. Ferrari has signed a six-year agreement to manufacture and supply all A1GP engines and will consult on the design and manufacture of all A1GP car chassis for use in Season Four (2008/09).
The partnership with Ferrari extends to an exclusive licensing agreement for all A1GP merchandise to use the Ferrari name and phrase ‘Powered by Ferrari’ from January 2008.
A total of 33 employees from Bahrain tyre specialist Ebrahim Khalil Kanoo (E K Kanoo) have been trained at a workshop organised by Michelin. The training was conducted by the Michelin’s Bahrain representative and technical sales officer Mahmoud Madi; and was the first workshop of its kind to be led by Michelin in Bahrain, according to local news sources. Ebrahim K. Kanoo B.S.C. serves customers ranging from on-road to off-road for passenger vehicles; and heavy duty truck tyres and specialised tyres for industrial and construction equipment. The division offers brands such as Michelin, BF Goodrich, Cooper, Sime, Amine and Ceat.
Crewe family firm Hopley Tyres enjoyed an exciting day of off-road driving at the Kankku 4×4 driving school recently, courtesy of Kings Road Tyres, and Kankku supplier, Cooper Tire. Dudley, Carl and Geoff Hopley travelled to the premier adventure driving centre in the beautiful Lake District countryside, with KRT branch manager, Mark Sneap, and purchasing and marketing manager, Tim Bader.
The Hopleys had won the trip in a competition run by Middlesex-based KRT and Cooper Tire at the Brityrex show at Manchester’s G-Mex Centre in May in order to showcase the Cooper Discoverer STT’s astounding capabilities off-road. Dudley Hopley said: “There were certain tracks we went up that I thought were impossible in any vehicle, but the Cooper STTs proved us all wrong.”
Cooper Tire & Rubber Company has announced the formation of a 50:50 joint venture company in Mexico. The new company, Cooper Tire & Rubber Company de Mexico SA de CV (Cooper Mexico) will be responsible for the marketing, sales and distribution of the Cooper and Pneustone brands, as well as all other associate brand tyres marketed by the two partner companies. Tyre production is expected to begin in the fourth quarter 2007.
Currently, the Pneustone brand is the house brand of Corporación de Occidente, a subsidiary company of Grupo Dexel, a Mexican holding corporation with entities involved in transportation, LP gas distribution, auto parts, and construction equipment.
“This is a great opportunity to grow the Cooper brands in Mexico,” said Phil Caris, vice president, Sales and Marketing, for Cooper Tire’s North American Tire Division. “By partnering with Occidente, we gain access to retail channels in Mexico and leverage existing relationships that Pneustone Brand has established with dealers throughout that country. Our existing customers in Mexico will benefit with the localized warehousing and increased focus on that market.”
The 2007 sporting season has been the year for World Cups, and Cooper Tire is about to embark on its third season with the World Cup of Motorsport, A1GP. Zandvoort, in The Netherlands, will host the opening race event of A1GP’s third season, on September 29/30. Cooper Tire has been the official tyre partner of the championship since its inception in 2005, and was reportedly chosen as the sole tyre supplier for its rich motorsport heritage and expertise.
(Akron/Tire Review) Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. appointed Jeff Endicott as its new process improvement director, where he will oversee quality improvement, cost control and waste reduction for Cooper’s North America plants.
Most recently, Endicott served as technical director of the Cooper/Kenda Tire joint venture manufacturing facility in Kunshan, China.
(Akron/Tire Review) Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. plans to increase pricing on all of its passenger and light truck/SUV tyres by up to 4 per cent. The increase will take effect on 1 October.
(Akron/Tire Review) It was a challenge that had to be made, but at least for now, a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in mid-June regarding NHTSA’s rule on tire pressure monitoring systems will stand as originally written. The court ruled the petitioning parties – four tire companies, TIA and consumer watchdog Public Citizen – failed to establish their standing in the dispute.
The court, however, made no comment relative to the merits of their argument. The reaction from the tire industry and the companies that challenged NHTSA’s “final rule” on TREAD Act-mandated TPMS is predictable. “We are still studying the decision,” says a Goodyear spokesman. Goodyear, Bridgestone/Firestone, Cooper, Pirelli North America, the Tire Industry Association (TIA) and consumer group Public Citizen all challenged the NHTSA standard requiring factory-installed TPMS to notify drivers if tire pressure drops 25% below carmaker-set tire inflation pressures.
Goodyear’s comments are typical of the reactions from the other plaintiffs. A spokesperson for Cooper says that they are evaluating their options, and added, “We still believe that consumer safety would be enhanced if this rule was changed.” The other members of the challenge either didn’t issue a statement or were waiting for the next step in the process.
According to a new report released by Standard & Poor’s, global tyre manufacturers may actually feel more pressure on margins and cash flow as the prices of raw materials decline. The financial and investment specialist added that the industry could suffer if manufacturers take lower costs as a signal to reduce prices in order to gain market share. The reduced income and cash flow from such a price war would in all likelihood more than cancel out the benefits of lower material costs.
“This is because pricing discipline in the industry may fade if tyre makers start reducing prices on the back of lower input costs in the expectation of gaining market share,” said Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Werner Staeblein. “Therefore, declining raw-material prices could spark more price competition in the industry with likely more negative effects on earnings and cash flow generation than the positive effect from lower input prices.”
Cooper Tire’s rugged Discoverer STT 4×4 tyre opens the door for vehicle choice in the adventure 4×4 market, according to UK off-road driving centre, Kankku.
The Lake District-based centre fits the Discoverer Super Traction Tread (STT) on its fleet of Land Rover Defenders, traditionally the vehicle of choice for adventure off-road driving. But it also operates a fleet of Mitsubishi Shoguns on its corporate and private events, and says that is only possible thanks to the Cooper rubber.
“A 4×4 vehicle on Cooper Discoverer STTs can easily upstage the vehicles you might reasonably expect to see in this kind of environment,” said Kankku’s Nick Fieldhouse. “The toughness and extreme durability of the tyre makes it perfect for our operation, which runs almost every day of the year.
“Our regularly-used fleet of Shoguns proves that the STT means you can now consider 4x4s other than Defenders for this type of driving, which opens up the activity to a huge number of new 4×4 owners.”
Michelin India has announced it will begin offering a truck tyre regrooving service which it claims will add about 20 per cent to a tyre’s total lifetime mileage. The regrooving will be performed through Michelin’s dealer network, and technicians will be given training in operating the handheld regrooving guns used in the process.
The regrooving process can potentially add up to 4mm of fresh grooves on a tyre and decrease fuel costs by as much as 10 per cent. “The company’s aim is to make our customers happy by helping them get maximum mileage from the tyres, more so because our products are at [the] high end in terms of price,” said Jason Cooper, Michelin India road staff manager.
The ruggedness of Cooper Tire 4×4 tyres is being put to the test with an ambitious 40,000km trek from Cape Town in South Africa to London. Cooper’s products have been selected as the tyre of choice for the “Africa Overland” expedition, a journey being made by Australian couple Ron and Viv Moon. This is their eighth trip through the Continent in 20 years, and by mid-August the couple was already halfway through the mammoth 30-week adventure; Ron and Vic expect to arrive in London in mid-October.
With South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, the Serengeti and Kenya already visited, the Cooper Discoverer STT-shod, 4.2-litre Nissan Patrol will pass through a total of 16 countries in all. “The tyres have performed fantastically well,” said Ron Moon. “We’ve clocked up some 33,000km and put them through some of the toughest roads in Africa, varying from near non-existent tracks, to sandy Kalahari Desert roads and deep mud hole-dotted trails. They’ve been amazingly good for the areas we’ve been driving in, and the loads we’ve been carrying – our vehicle weighs around four tonnes.”
New from Cooper Tire for the upcoming cold season is the recently launched Discoverer M+S Sport, a range of winter tyres introduced to meet the needs of high performance 4×4 vehicles. According to Cooper the Discoverer M+S Sport’s number one strength is its winter traction, particularly during snow and icy conditions. The tread design of the tyre incorporates biting edges that offer a high degree of grip without compromising tread element stiffness. Cooper attributes the road grasping qualities of the tread to a patent pending feature it calls “Snow Groove Design Technology.” The tyremaker reports that this unique design utilises the superior traction characteristics of ‘snow on snow’ grip as opposed to ‘rubber on snow’, while at the same time dispensing of unwanted snow build up in the tyre’s grooves. The zigzag sipe pattern present on the Discoverer M+S Sport ensures strong wet traction as well as winter performance. The depth of the sipes allows their efficacy to continue as the tyre continues to wear with use.
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