Founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is an American multinational tyre manufacturing company based in Akron, Ohio. It is one of the oldest, biggest and best-known tyremakers in the world. Goodyear makes tyres for automobiles, commercial trucks, light trucks, motorcycles, SUVs, racing cars, aeroplanes, farm equipment and heavy earth-mover machinery. Find all the news and analysis you need relating to Goodyear here.
On March 28, Goodyear Tire & Rubber announced a public offering of 8.7 million shares of its mandatory convertible preferred stock, with a price of US$50 a share. In addition, the underwriters have an option to purchase up to an additional 1.3 million shares of mandatory convertible preferred stock. The offering is expected to close on March 31, 2011, subject to customary closing conditions.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a UFO? No, despite the scores of twitterers that misidentified the well-known motor-driven airship during a night flight over London, it’s the Goodyear blimp, which returned to European airspace during March after a 12-year leave of absence.
Over the last decade, Goodyear Blimps have flown over the USA, Brazil and China, but this news marks the first European tour since 1999. Between March and October, two Goodyear Blimps named Spirit of Safety I and Spirit of Safety II will visit 20 countries, with the tour starting in the UK. Shortly after the aforementioned night-flight over London, Tyres & Accessories went blimping on the Goodyear airship and found out a little more about the craft’s current mission.
The United Steelworkers in Canada have donated $20,000 toward earthquake and tsunami relief efforts in Japan. Nearly 10,000 confirmed deaths occurred in the March 11 disaster. The donation came from the USW Canada’s Humanity Fund. The Steelworkers' contribution will be channeled through International Chemical Energy and Mining Unions Federation affiliates in Japan, and the Canadian Labour Congress.
Goodyear has announced a number of key personnel changes in the Asia Pacific region. On March 1, Mike Martens took charge of the tyre maker’s Melbourne-based Australia and New Zealand business, replacing Judith Swales, who, according to Goodyear’s Asia Pacific president Pierre Cohade, has “decided to leave Goodyear to pursue her interest of holding non executive board positions in Australia.” The 25-year Goodyear veteran will continue his role as vice president of Asia Pacific OTR.
Continental reports its HD Hybrid commercial vehicle tyre has beaten off the competition – namely the Bridgestone Ecopia, Goodyear Marathon LHT II, Hankook E-Cube, Pirelli ST:01 and Dunlop SP 244 – to be named “Neumático del Año en España 2011”, or tyre of the year, by Spain’s Grupo Tecnipublicaciones. This award in the commercial vehicle category of the publishing group’s Madrid-based annual awards was presented to Conti truck sales manager Juan Uruburu and truck marketing manager Frank Deuter. Continental states that, in presenting this award, the jury acknowledges the “commitment of tyre manufacturers to advanced tyre technologies that increase safety, minimise wear, improve environmental compatibility and generally make a contribution to reduced fuel consumption.”
Goodyear chairman and CEO Richard J Kramer says that the company has “a clear view of our destination as a business and well-defined strategies for driving value” as it strategises its path back to profit, having posted net losses of $216 million and $375 million in 2010 and 2009 respectively. The company believes that what it terms “seven MegaTrends” over the next five years to a decade will favour its approach, which includes a focus on high-profit segments. The company is holding an investor conference in New York today to discuss how to meet its target of $1.6 billion operating profit – a would-be record for the company – by 2013. The company also announced an operating income target of $450 million in 2013 for the North American Tire segment, as well as improved margins worldwide.
Goodyear has detailed a change to the product strategy of its million-selling Optitrac range of farm radial tyres, which is to become more application focused. Commenting on these new developments to the Optitrac range, Phil Stanton, Goodyear’s Farm Tyre manager, said: “Goodyear has found that the trends in the agricultural machinery market, particularly with the high end machines, means that application specific tyres will be required in the future. The differing performance requirements of tractors and harvesters can no longer be fully satisfied by the same tyre. The 2 new ranges of tyres will clearly segment our OPTITRAC product line into specific tyres for tractors and for harvester machines and will have features that will provide the performance benefits demanded by the operators of these machines.”
Three new radial implement tyre ranges for the North American market have been introduced by Titan Goodyear Farm Tires. Known as the FS34, the Muck Master Radial and the Super Flot Radial, all three offer the usual benefits of radial construction plus a large contact area for better flotation and less soil compaction.
On 14 March Dunlop launched its latest high performance winter tyre – the SP Wintersport 4D – with the frozen lakes of Sweden providing a suitably cold and slippery environment for journalists from across Europe. Following on from the critically acclaimed SP Wintersport 3D, the new cold weather rubber boasts lower fuel consumption (due to 11 per cent better rolling resistance) and greater road handling and safety capabilities than its competitors and predecessor.
The Dunlop SP Wintersport 4D is available in 37 variants covering over 84 per cent of the total European car parc. Sizes range between 195/65 R15 and 255/35 R19. While the tyre is being released across a range of H to V speed ratings, Tyres & Accessories understands that W-rated variants will be made available shortly, making Dunlop's latest cold weather product a true UHP winter tyre. Audi and BMW are among the OE marques already associated with the newly launched product.
HiQ has named Motorama in Tamworth as the latest garage to join its network. Some £30,000 was invested converting the garage into a HiQ centre following owner Jay Ghedia’s decision to sign on as a franchise partner; the funds paid for numerous site upgrades, including an interior and exterior refurbishment.
Goodyear has announced a new farm tyre in its Optitrac range specifically developed for harvester machines: the Optitrac H+. The H+ range will include tyres designed to operate at higher deflection levels, signified by the addition of the letters IF as a prefix to the size and CFO as a suffix. Goodyear says these tyres have been designed in line with a four-year 2009 ETRTO experimental standard which allows a “load bonus of up to 55 per cent for cyclic field operations without the need to increase the inflation pressure”. This new range was shown on Goodyear’s stand at the 2011 SIMA show held in Paris with the introduction of the first two sizes: IF800/70R32 CFO and IF800/75R32 CFO. It was developed by the Goodyear Innovation Centre – Luxembourg (GIC*L) and has been tested and approved by harvester manufacturers in Europe.
A Securities and Exchange Commission filing submitted by Goodyear Tire & Rubber reveals the tyre maker’s top executives received considerable compensation increases last year, despite the company posting another annual loss.
Titan International’s acquisition of Goodyear’s European and Latin American agricultural tyre business has given the US tyre maker access to agricultural products designed at the Goodyear Innovation Center in Colmar Berg, Luxembourg – including the Goodyear Optitrac R+. In March 2011 Titan Goodyear Farm Tires announced its introduction of a tyre that has proven popular with European farmers during the past five years.
Goodyear’s brand event in Seville earlier this year (a report will be published in March’s Tyres & Accessories) saw the company talking up a safety message through its promotion of its new Eagle F1 Asymmetric 2 and UltraGrip 8 tyres, but the company plans to do more than provide increased safety features through its products. European brand director Hugues Despres announced that “the Goodyear Blimp will take the lead on a number of road safety initiatives as it becomes the focal point for Goodyear’s consumer based activities and events.” This will be the Blimp’s first return to Europe for over 10 years, embarking on the 2011 Goodyear Safety Tour.
Alongside the launch of the Eagle F1 Asymmetric 2 at Goodyear's brand event in Seville was the introduction of the eighth generation of Goodyear's UlraGrip cold weather tyre range. “The confusion surrounding winter tyres must be resolved,” says Gerrit Huysmans of Belgium’s Association of Tyre Manufacturers, FederAuto, a statement that Jean-Pierre Jeusette, Goodyear’s director of tyre technology for consumer tyres in EMEA, agrees: “What the consumer often doesn’t know is that winter tyres are developed using very specific rubber compounds that perform much better at lower temperatures… Add to that the fact that the tread pattern of winter tyres is also optimised for maximum grip as well as water and slush evacuation, and you begin to understand why there is a very real difference in performance.” A search for “winter tyres” on tyrepress.com would suggest that the fierce European winters of the last two years have increased knowledge of speciality cold weather considerably; the latest figures suggest the market volume has risen 20 per cent in that time, with a marked increase in the UK – often considered to have more growth room than any comparable country.
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