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.
That Continental wants to manufacture tyres in China, has already been decided. The questions now are “Where” and “How”, so Continental executive committee Hans-Joachim Nikolin told the “Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung” (HAZ).
About 130 Goodyear Tire & Rubber workers in Statesville (North Carolina) have reason to celebrate today after an independent arbitrator confirmed on Wednesday that a majority of production and maintenance workers have signed United Steelworkers of America (USWA) authorisation cards. They join more than 19,000 USWA members already working at Goodyear facilities in the United States and Canada. The workers, who produce tyre moulds for Goodyear, were organised through a neutrality agreement in the 2003 USWA-Goodyear labour agreement. It says the Union will be recognised as the workers’ bargaining agent if a majority of workers sign USWA authorisation cards.
Another 84 jobs have been cut at Wolverhampton in the farm tyre division. This follows a denial that the transfer of agricultural tyre production to an off-take had any impact on Goodyear’s Wolverhampton agricultural tyre production. Six years ago the plant had around 3,000 staff, but the figure is now down to 600 and part of the site has been sold for commercial development. A spokesperson for Goodyear Dunlop said that Wolverhampton was still not as cost-effective as the group’s European average.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has announced its intention to commence a private offering of approximately 650 million US dollar aggregate principal amount of senior secured notes. The final principal amount and note maturities will be determined by market conditions. The senior notes are expected to be secured by junior liens on certain of the collateral securing the company’s senior secured US credit facilities. Goodyear intends to use the proceeds from the offering to prepay its US term loan facility, to reduce a portion of the commitments under its US revolving credit facility, to repay other indebtedness of the company, including temporary reductions of outstanding balances under its revolving lines of credit, and for general corporate purposes.
A fire that started early Wednesday at a tire factory owned by Goodyear (Thailand) PCL damaged a raw material warehouse, but other operations weren’t affected, a policeman told Dow Jones Newswires.
In its latest move to cut costs, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. has transferred 100 human resources jobs in Akron to a sub contractor. The company has signed a 10-year agreement with Affiliated Computer Services Inc. of Dallas. All employees affected have been offered jobs at similar conditions with ACS. Some human resources functions will stay in house under the agreement, ACS will provide a wide range of human resources services, including payroll, medical benefits administration, training, recruiting and staffing for all Goodyear employees in North America.
Rodney O’Neal, the president of Delphi Corporation’s Dynamics, Propulsion, Thermal and Interior Sector, has been elected to the Board of Directors of The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. “Rodney has demonstrated outstanding leadership throughout his many business management successes at General Motors and Delphi,” said Goodyear Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert J. Keegan. “We are confident he will make significant contributions to our board.” In his present position, which he has held since 2003, O’Neal is also responsible for Delphi’s operations in Europe and South America and serves as executive champion for its Ford Motor Company customer team. He is a member of the Delphi Strategy Board, the company’s top internal policy-making group. The election of O’Neal brings the size of Goodyear’s board to ten members, nine of whom are independent..
The Agricultural tyre sector in the UK has had a tough year. It began with the aftermath of Foot and Mouth. There was an extremely wet start to the year. Then a prolonged dry period – the driest – if not the hottest – in 25 years.
Wet weather usually means more sales for the agricultural sector, but too much rain just stops the market in its tracks – no pun intended. That was the case early in the year. When the weather turned dry the public lapped up the sunshine and the long dry spell, but farmers anticipating the traditional UK summer were faced with their own dry weather difficulties.
However, tyres and traction were not amongst their troubles. Dry fields do not create traction problems and the agriculture sector stretched the mileage of existing tyres well beyond their expected lifespan. The result has been a drop in the overall market of something around 10 per cent.
The wider agricultural market is dominated by Michelin, Goodyear, Continental and Bridgestone in the UK – with the big players accounting for around 60 per cent of the market. Although just how big the market is no-one can say. That 60 per cent represents almost two thirds of the premium brand tyre market. It does not include the figures of the budget brand sector. As with the car and truck sectors there is no hard evidence to confirm the sales figures at the bottom end of the market. Asking tyre companies about market share results in a sum that is greater than the whole. But general consensus places Michelin group at the head of the market, followed by Goodyear Dunlop, then Continental and Bridgestone followed by Trelleborg/Pirelli and Vredestein.
In order to sell tyres it is, in every sector, important to know who, or what, the customer is and what is being sought. It might be a fair assumption to say that the farmer expects tyres to do the job they are asked to do. That, in itself, is open to interpretation. The contractor may be keeping an eye on the slip meter in the cab and be watching for the point of diminishing returns from a set of tyres; changing them at the point when they become inefficient for his purposes. Another farmer using the same tyres may take a different approach, saying that so long as they hold air they will stay on the tractor. Somewhere in-between there are those who only change tyres when they are damaged beyond repair – they may change the tractor at the same time as the tyres. In marketing tyres to the top end of the agricultural sector though, there must be an assumption made that the people prepared to pay the premium price for a leading brand tyre must have some concept of tyre management and an eye on productivity and efficiency.
Goodyear has announced that it intends to commence a syndication being arranged by JPMorgan and Citigroup for the addition of a new 300 million US dollar term loan to its existing 1.3 billion US dollar asset-based credit facility. In addition, Goodyear announced that it intends to commence discussions with the lenders under its senior secured credit facilities to amend those facilities to allow for future capital markets transactions. Those transactions may involve the granting of junior liens on some collateral securing the company’s senior secured U.S. credit facilities. “These actions enhance our near-term liquidity and position us to access the capital markets as we gain traction in our turnaround plan during 2004,” said Goodyear Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert J. Keegan. “I have a high level of confidence in our strategy and in the execution of our plan as we move forward.”
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.’s newest blimp, the “Spirit of America”, which crashed during a landing six weeks ago, will fly again. The company has announced that it will rebuild the damaged airship and return it to the skies by late summer. The rebuilding project will take place at Goodyear’s Wingfoot Lake airship hangar in Suffield Township. The blimp will keep its name, and will not undergo any design changes. The blimp’s envelope sustained a large gash when it hit a fence. Workers will replace the damaged envelope with a spare envelope, which the company already has on hand, spokeswoman Jennifer Arnold said. The gondola suffered minor damages, and will be repaired, she said. The engine, fins and propellers were undamaged, she added.
Goodyear is to serve as Penske’s primary supplier of tyres in North America until at least 2008. Goodyear supplies Penske with a variety of truck tyres, including replacement and retreaded tyres. “We have developed an excellent supply relationship with the Penske team, and we are pleased to announce an extension of the agreement,” said Steve McClellan, Goodyear’s vice president of commercial tyre systems. In recognition of Goodyear’s past outstanding service, Penske named Goodyear as a Supplier of the Year.
Goodyear’s process preserves the rubber’s chemical composition and molecular weight, leaving the rubber suitable for re-compounding and re-curing into new products. It uses an environmentally friendly, recyclable solvent. “Initial tests resulted in a 40 percent recovery rate of the raw polymer with its structure essentially preserved, and through process improvements, we’ve been able to achieve an 80 percent recovery level. This demonstrates that the chemistry to recover polymer close to its original state is possible.”
The Cadillac CTS-V high-performance luxury sedan, the most powerful production car ever offered in the Cadillac lineup equipped with a 5.7-liter, V-8 engine producing 400 horsepower and 390 foot-pounds of torque, will run on Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar run-flats in size P245/45WR18. General Motor’s latest Corvette will also ride on Goodyear Eagles. The new Corvette is slightly smaller than the current C5 model, and it will feature a new 6-liter V-8 engine that generates 400 horsepower, creating a combination that should make it the most powerful production Corvette ever. For the 2005 Corvette, Goodyear will supply Eagle F1 GS-2 EMT (Extended Mobility Technology) tires in a P245/40ZR18 size for the front, and P285/35ZR19 in the rear wheel positions. On the optional Z51 Performance Package version of the new Corvette, Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar EMT tires will be the fitment.
Kumho Tires Ltd. has completed construction of a tyre plant equipped with an automated production unit in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul. The company is the first Korean tyre maker to have the automated system that so far is used by only the five top tyre companies around the world – Michelin, Bridgestone, Goodyear, Continental and Pirelli. Kumho said the automated production unit combines nine stages of tyre production, cutting the length of the production line from 1.2 kilometers to 800 metres. About 100 billion won (84 million US dollars) was spent on the construction over the past two years and four months. The new factory can produce 6,000 tyres per day, with annual production capacity expected at 2 million. The company’s total annual production now is 36.6 million tyres.
While the US- Automobile Industry and most of the suppliers could improve their pension fund positions, Goodyear is, according to analysts, an exception. Compared with liabilities of 2.2 billion US-Dollars at the year end 2002; those could now have risen to 3 billion US-Dollars. Analysts from Deutsche Bank do not see potential for Goodyear shares and recommend a
cautious stance. They still have doubts that Goodyear can manage the long awaited turnaround in North America this year despite the fact that the
markets as well as the tyre replacement market have shown strong improvements.
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