Michelin subsiduary Stomil-Olsztyn has announced that it will be reducing ist workforce by 120 people during this year. At the same time, a further 70 full time employees have reverted to part-time. Stomil-Olsztyn are located in the regions of Warmia and Mazury in northern Poland and employ around 4.000 workers who produce passenger, truck, light truck and agricultural tyres as well as tyre fabrics and curing moulds.
Pneu-Stössel AG (Schlieren) has sold its eight outlets to the strongest independent tyre dealer organisation in Europe, Danish Viborg Gruppen. With its subsidiary Pneu Matti AG (Dietlikon), Viborg Gruppen was already one ofthe leading Swiss tyre dealers. Integrating Pneu-Stössel creates Switzerland’s market leader among independent tyre dealers with 21 outlets and more than 140 employees.
Cooper-Avon has announced that it will be making 80 staff employees redundant in Europe. Locations affected are the Melksham (UK) HQ and offices in Switzerland, France and Germany. The cuts are blamed on the high level of the Pound and large numbers of imported tyres from the Far East and have been made, says Cooper-Avon, to reduce costs and increase job security for the remaining 900+ employees.
Robert J. Keegan (53), one time top manager with Kodak, assumed the position as Goodyears‘s president and chief operating officer in Akron on 1st of October, making him the deputy and named successor of chairman Sam Gibara (61). According to group publications, Keegan will be responsible for day to day business, whereas Gibara will be more concerned with strategy.
Jaguar has announced a long term partnership with Michelin in which, from next season, all F1 cars in the Jaguar/Ford racing stable will be fitted with Michelin tyres.
Assuming the approval of the Competition Commission, the Danish tyre dealer and retreading company Viborg Gruppen together with the British Legal & General Ventures Limited (LGV) will take over all the tyre distribution activities (150 service centres) of Gummi-Mayer retrospectively from 30th September 1999. The integration of Gummi-Mayer into the existing companies of Viborg Gruppen will create the largest independent distribution and service company in the European tyre business. At the beginning of the year Viborg/LGV took over the tyre distribution activities of Stinnes AG in Germany, Holland, France, Austria and Switzerland and now has a close-knit Europe-wide service net. The sale includes all domestic tyre distribution and service activities trading in Germany under the names Gummi-Mayer and Autechna. All employees will be retained by Viborg, which has the right to the use of the Gummi-Mayer name initially for a period of ten years. Pending the approval of the Competition Commission, Gummi-Mayer will continue to be run by Hans and Franz Mayer. After the incorporation of Gummi-Mayer Viborg Gruppen will have a turnover of nearly 1.4 billion marks with more than 3,000 employees.
In an interview with the rather left-wing daily paper “Liberation” Edouard Michelin gave his comment on the so-called “Michelin Affair”. On 8th September the group reported a 20 p.c. rise in its half-yearly profits while at the same time declaring that it wanted to shed 7,500 employees in European factories within three years. The Michelin boss attributes the unusually fierce public reaction, by French politicians in particular, to insufficient public discussion. It has to be possible, he argued, to take the right entrepreneurial measures in time to achieve a rapid improvement in productivity, which is 15 to 20 p.c. below that of the group’s main competitors, Bridgestone and Goodyear. And the only way to do that, he claimed, is through accelerated growth on the basis of a new sales policy and through job cuts. Edouard Michelin reminded his critics that in the last twenty years the group had twice been faced with extinction, that it had needed to lose 25,000 employees in France and in spite of that had issued only 186 dismissal notices. Asked about the “Lex Michelin” (a change of law to accommodate the “Michelin case”, dealing with the application for state aid to facilitate social plans), Edouard Michelin pointed out that the group had indeed received a French state subsidy for its social plans in the past amounting to four or five billion francs, but that at the same time the French state had received 45 billion francs in social contributions, taxes and other levies. Today the group still makes 30 p.c. of total investments within France, he continued, and retains 30 p.c. of the production capacity in the country, although the domestic market takes only 15 p.c. of total sales. Though keen to dust off certain parts of the company, he said, he wants to preserve its culture, personality and customs. As the head of a “family business” he sees himself as “permanently accountable” and cannot afford not to make long-term plans, because he is only too well aware of having to defend his decisions also in five or ten years’ time. On the question of worldwide merger plans Edouard Michelin said that his company is in a position “to play an active part. Our gaze is directed towards Asia. Michelin has a talent for growth.”
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