Cooper Tire & Rubber is cutting back on 1,100 jobs and scaling back, or shutting some 18 plants world-wide. Cutbacks at US plants in Michigan, North Carolina and Texas do not appear to affect tyre manufacture. Lay-offs at European plants have still to be confirmed and would be undertaken in consultation with employee representatives. The cutbacks come alongside announcements of record third quarter profits.
Cooper-Avon Tyres has announced that it is to phase out the production of medium sized truck and bus tyres at its Melksham, UK plant. The company intends to concentrate on passenger, light truck, motorcycle and racing tyres.
Goodyear, Toyo and Cooper were the losers in mid May, although Toyo shares – like those of Pirelli – had increased in the beginning of the month. In the automotive industry, BMW, Mitsubishi and Volkswagen were the heaviest losers. But the shares of DaimlerChrysler, General Motors, Honda and Toyota lost as well. DaimlerChrysler, Fiat and Volvo even fell to an all year low.
For a change, some good news for Bridgestone regarding SUV tyres. The Bridgestone Dueler AT 693 came out top in a survey of SUV tyres in US magazine Consumer Reports. The tests for the all-terrain tyres included wet and dry braking, emergency handling, noise, rolling resistance, traction in snow and braking on ice. The Bridgestone tyre was followed by (in order) Kelly Safari AWR, Dunlop Radial Rover, Cooper Discoverer A/T, Firestone Wilderness AT II and Goodyear Wrangler AT/S. In a separate table of all-season SUV tyres, the BFGoodrich Radial Long Trail T/A came top.
Cooper Tire & Rubber, the US tyre and rubber manufacturer, announced sales of US$ 2.2 bn, which is an increase of 17% compared with 1998. Net income was US$ 135.5m. This figure is 6.7% up on 1998.
Tyre business was better than expected for Cooper in the first quarter of 2000. Due to the Cooper management the company succeeded in entering into new business relationships with some huge companies in the USA. Doubtless the joint venture with Pirelli was helpful in this.
In the last few months Michelin, and to a lesser extent, Goodyear, have seen a growth in shareholders, although this has not helped to boost their share prices. The clear winner in terms of price gain was Pirelli. The shares of Continental, Bridgestone and Cooper were not in demand – surprisingly in Cooper’s case, as the company made a profit like in the year before.
Pat Rooney, CEO and Chairman of Cooper Tires Ohio/USA, is to retire on June 3rd 2000. Tom Dattilo, currently President and COO, will succeed him.
In the first week of July Goodyear shares were down, while Bridgestone, Michelin and Toyo Tires were all winners. Only a short time before, at the end of June Goodyear and Michelin shares had gone down as well as car manufacturers Mazda, General Motors, Volkswagen and BMW lost drastically. Mid June almost the same situation: Goodyear going down (this time Bridgestone and Cooper too) leaving only Yokohama as a winner.
US-tyre manufacturer Cooper increased turnover during the first nine month by 17 % compared with the same period in 1999 to 1.3 bn $. This figure includes 123 million $ coming from Oliver, the retreading company which was purchased some months ago. It is said that Oliver has lost its biggest customer, forcing the company to search aggressively for new opportunities. Surprisingly or not: Cooper again managed an Operating Profit in the Tire Division of 10.4 % (last year 11.5 %) but there is the need for some restructuring in the non-tyre field.
Cooper-Avon has announced the launch of a newly developed road and track tyre, the CR500, which will be fitted to Caterham’s new Superlight R500 model. The tyre has been jointly developed by Cooper-Avon and Caterham and is heavily influenced by Avon’s radial tyre racing success.
Tofan Grup (Romania) is producing car tyres for Cooper-Avon at its Danubiana plant (Bucharest).
An item in our ‘News In Brief’ for 13th March suggested that tyre prices in the USA would soon rise. Since then, the Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. has announced price increases of between 2 and 5% for passenger and light truck tyres, effective mid-April. Increases in raw material costs were cited as the reason for the rise, which applies only to the US market.
Tyre manufacturer Cooper Avon wants to buy Siebe’s Automotive Devision. According to present information Cooper has to pay 244.5 million US-Dollar for the company which belongs to the British Invensys group.
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