Blackcircles.com is aiming to increase its garage network by 30 per cent by the end of 2009, adding as many as 400 garages. Announcing the news the company vowed to help independent garages “fight back”, saying it offers “additional revenue, customer footfall and national marketing, helping [independents] compete with major high street brands.”
Despite an increase in revenues during the first half of 2009, Delticom CFO Frank Schuhardt retains a cautious outlook towards the company’s full-year performance. "Consumers across Europe are going to feel the effects of the crisis over the coming months,” he commented. “This is bound to have an impact on the tyre trade. Consequently, we should not assume that Delticom will be as profitable in the second half of the year as it was in the first half."
During its recent company summit, US based suspension manufacturer Air Ride Technologies announced a change of name to RideTech. "In the past 15 years Air Ride Technologies has matured into a full line suspension company," commented company founders Bret and Sharon Voelkel. "The RideTech name more fully reflects our current and upcoming product line. Our core product will continue to be the Air Ride Technologies air suspension, but we are applying our experience and resources to an expanding product line and customer base."
CBp Carbon Industries has released a press statement in response to the August 9 statement published by Fader Technologies LLC. The company states it is "saddened" that it must response to this release, but notes it has done so in order to "correct serious falsehoods and libels and to comfort the Company's stock holders."
A chunk of Ruia Group company Falcon Tyres will be sold in order to increase ouput at its factory in Mysore, eastern India, and to ensure its promoters shareholder remains below the 75 per cent required to stay listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The share, according to Indian media, is to be sold to a private equity firm for Rs 1 billion (£12.6 million).
“We are in the process of preparing our presentation and hope to be through with the placement within the next two months,” Falcon Tyres chairman Pawan Kumar Ruia told the Hindu Business Line. Ruia reports that the promoters’ share in the company went up to 86 per cent following the recently concluded open offer requiring either a public issue or private placement.
During the first quarter of the current financial year JK Tyre & Industries Ltd. recorded “an excellent performance,” the company’s vice-chairman and managing director, Dr. Raghupati Singhania, noted. According to Dr. Singhania, this positive performance took the form of “all round cost reduction measures, better operating efficiencies, productivity and richer product mix.”
During the three months from April to June, the company achieved nets sales of Rs 8.98 billion (£112.4 million) and operating profit of Rs 1.07 billion (£13.4 million). The unaudited results show pre-tax profit to be Rs 620 million (£7.76 million).
Bosch has invested approximately $8 million to renovate its vehicle test track in Flat Rock, Mich., to provide a state-of-the-art facility that will be used to test a variety of automotive technologies.
The renovation included repaving and expanding the surface size of the site’s Vehicle Dynamics Area, and reconfiguring the test facility to accommodate Bosch’s vehicle dynamics and foundation brake testing. Facility improvements include expansion of the pad size from 417,000 to 937,000 square feet; addition of a three-lane high bank curve; extension of the track loop from 3/4-mile to 1.4 miles; and the installation of a hydroplane surface.
Teijin Aramid will be continuing to pursue its aim of becoming the leading and preferred aramid supplier from booth 3106 at CITExpo. Its products include Twaron, the synthetic fibre made from aramid polymer, which can be found in a comprehensive range of products including protective clothing, ballistic vests and helmets, tyres, hoses, composites, conveyor belts, optical fibre cables, transmission belts, gaskets, brake linings and clutch facings. The company says that it anticipates sustained across-the-board expansion in all sectors.
In the tyre industry, Teijin Aramid provides Twaron- and Technora-dipped tyre cord and anti-puncture fabric for tyre reinforcement. It also provides Technora-dipped chopped fibre and Sulfron product for tyre compounds. Teijin Aramid is a member of the Teijin Group, a global, technology-driven company, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of $4.2 billion. Teijin’s consolidated turnover amounts to $8.5 billion. It has approximately 19,000 employees worldwide.
B-Quik Co, Thailand’s leading operator of car service centres, has increased its revenue target this year to 2 billion baht (42.1 million euros) from 1.8 billion (37.9 million euros) as sluggish demand for new cars has been a windfall to the maintenance market. Eight to 10 B-Quik service centres will be added this year to the existing network of 56 sites nationwide, said chief executive Henk Kiks.
“The market has been surprisingly good for us with revenue surging over 30 per cent in the first half,” said Kiks. “We earlier projected sales of 1.8 billion baht, growth of 21 per cent from last year, but now we are aiming for over a 33 per cent rise to 2 billion by the end of the year.”
Situated in a prime location in Hall 20, the Infinity stand at the recent Autopromotec 2009 was, the company believes, one of the show’s busiest, displaying the general confidence and determination to push the brand forwards in Europe.
As well as showcasing two new products – the Infinity 059 and the Infinity 200 – there was a comprehensive series of distributor update meetings. All the main European and International Infinity distributors visited the stand and were welcomed by the Infinity team from Europe and Dubai.
Balkrishna Tyre (BKT) launched its latest range of OTR radials, which are sub-branded Earthmax at the Intermat show in April. At present they are available in SR 30 pattern E3/L3 tyres in 25-inch rim diameter and are the first Indian produced all steel casing radial tyre for earthmover application. According to the company, the first phase BKT is to extend the product line up to 35-inch diameter tyres in various patterns with multiple compound options. BKT has also increased its existing industrial and construction tyre range, with expansion of its radial industrial tractor tyre segment and launch of AT 621 pattern tyres for Backhoe loaders with special cut resistance compound & lug geometry.
BKT boasts a comprehensive range of industrial, construction, material handling and earthmoving tyres from 8’ to 51-inch rim diameters covering wide applications including underground mining tyres and specialized port application tyres. Now having ventured into the Radial OTR BKT representatives believe the company is “all geared up to make in-roads and widening its penetration in servicing this market.”
A research project utilising modelling technology to reduce the cost and time involved in aircraft tyre development has landed Dunlop Aircraft Tyres £120,000 in funding from the Midlands Aerospace Alliance (MAA). This project, co-funded by the aircraft tyre manufacturer, is being conducted together with the University of Birmingham’s School of Mechanical Engineering.
In addition to identifying ways in which modelling can improve the tyre design process and thus bring products to market quicker, the project gives airframe, landing gear and wheel and brake manufacturers will have the opportunity to save costs by utilising output from the supply chain partnership project to improve aircraft and landing gear system modelling and simulation.
B.I.T.S director Bill Daly sadly passed away on Sunday 28 June after a courageous battle with cancer. Bill, an industrious and caring person, spent all of his working life in the tyre industry. His career began some 43 years ago in the local office of Firestone. Through a lot of hard work and determination, he gained successive promotions and progressed to administration manager for Firestone, covering the northern part of the UK.
In August 1982 Bill joined B.I.T.S, a member of The County Tyre Group of Companies, and together with Stan Naylor started the first expansion of B.I.T.S in the North at Preston. Through the success of the Preston location and Bill’s dedication, he was made a director of B.I.T.S Group in 1996. He was a valuable and influential member of the team, contributing greatly to the further expansion of B.I.T.S. He will be very dearly missed by his wife Linda and his loss will also be deeply felt by his many colleagues, some of whom have known Bill since he was a teenager.
Following a net loss of Rm 12.8 million (£2.2 million) in 2008, Malaysia’s Goodway Integrated Industries anticipates returning into the black this year thanks to increasing demand and weaker raw material prices. Following the company’s annual general meeting on June 23, company CEO Tai Boon Wee told the Kuala Lumpur based Business Times that “yes, we will definitely see profit this year. Orders have been picking up since the second quarter of this year and our third quarter [performance] is showing better business and profit.”
In preparation for better times the retreader and compound supplier is placing an emphasis upon export market expansion – Brazil and Turkey are two locations named as upcoming recipients of extra attention.
Tire Group International (TGI) has opened a new sales office in Santiago, Chile in a continuation of its marketing and distribution expansion strategy in Latin America and the Caribbean. The new office will be led by Gonzalo Miño Fourines who joins TGI with over 25 years experience in the tyre and automotive industries. Miño’s CV includes work with General Motors Chile SA, DIASA SA and Neumaticos de Chile SA.
“TGI has been very successful in implementing its marketing strategy in targeted countries throughout Latin American and the Caribbean. With Gonzalo’s broad tyre industry experiences, we fully expect to continue leveraging our successes in order to further expand our presence throughout the region. Gonzalo brings a unique skill-set within sales and marketing where we feel he’ll deliver immediate benefits as he promotes our brands and the wide array of solutions and services TGI offers”, said Orlando Delgado, Tire Group International’s Senior Vice President of Business Development.
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