While Goodyear celebrates ‘120 Years of Innovation’ in 2018, in South Africa the company is also celebrating moving to a new headquarters at the Hertford Office Park in Midrand. Goodyear South Africa has consolidated its Johannesburg-based offices to support the dompany’s business strategy of business simplification, increased efficiencies and enabling effective employee engagement.
With the ramp-up of its plant in Hungary, Apollo Tyres Ltd. is growing in Europe. The company also has ambitious plans in its home market of India – it aims to become the country’s leading tyre maker, and is investing to do so. Total investments over the period between 2015 and 2021 approach £900 million.
Several days after its Board of Directors approved plans to build a factory in Serbia, Shandong Linglong Tire Co., Ltd. signed an investment memorandum with regional and national officials. Company chairman and president Wang Feng signed the agreement together with Goran Knežević, Serbia’s Minister of Economy, at a ceremony held in Zrenjanin, Serbia on 23 August. Aleksandar Vučić, president of Serbia, and Li Manchang, China’s ambassador to the country, also attended the ceremony.
The UK’s largest online car repair marketplace has secured £4 million from investors including Shell Ventures, Sir Trevor Chinn, Active Partners and Venrex Investment Management.
Birla Carbon has announced a series of expansion plans designed to raise its carbon black capacity in a number of regions.
Shandong Linglong Tire Co. Ltd. has laid the foundation stone for its fourth Chinese factory. The event, held 6 July ran in parallel with Linglong Tire’s “global partners” conference.
The new plant is in addition to Linglong’s existing Zhaoyuan, Dezhou and Liuzhou factories. Linglong is building the fourth plant at a 223-acre site in the city of Jingmen in Hubei province.
Over the next three years, Arlanxeo will invest “mid double-digit million” euros to modernize its production sites in Triunfo, Brazil and La Wantzenau, France.
Recent investment has provided Klarius with increased manufacturing capacity for automotive OEM and aftermarket emission control products including exhausts, CATs and DPFs.
“Demand is being driven by both the UK market and export growth” states Paul Hannah, Business Development Director. “The aftermarket is changing rapidly and while quality is still very important, once the required standards and certifications have been met, the focus is all on range and availability.
Wanli-owner Guangzhou Vanlead Group Co. Ltd. has indefinitely postponed plans to invest US$1 billion in the construction of a tyre factory in South Carolina, USA. Now the company is said to be considering alternative locations including some in Europe
Indian tyre manufacturer Ceat is planning to invest around 40 billion rupees (£442.4 million; 499.8 million euros; $482 million) in the construction of a greenfield tyre manufacturing facility near Sriperumbudur, 40 kilometres west of Chennai. The Times of India reports that the Tamil Nadu cabinet met on Wednesday 27 June to “approve the new project and offered a structured incentive package for the unit, which when becomes operational in about a year, will directly employ 1,000 people”.
GKN Wheels and Structures is commissioning a brand new manufacturing cell at its plant in Nagbøl, Denmark.
The programme will see the introduction of robotic technology, with the largest and fastest robot in Denmark being installed to improve both the company’s speed of manufacture and flexibility of production. On completion, the new manufacturing cell will be capable of producing very small batch sizes efficiently and cost-effectively, with changeover times brought down to an absolute minimum. Depending on customer’s specific requirements, the new production cell can also weld different valve guards and make a high spot mark.
European FinTyre Distribution Limited (EfTD), one of the largest Pan European tyre distributors, has agreed to acquire the privately held Reifen Krieg Group, a leading full-range tyre wholesaler in Germany. As a result, EfTD is set to become the market leader in two key European countries, Germany and Italy, with 1.1 billion euros of total revenue. According to EfTD, Reifen Krieg’s current owners, Holger Krieg and Tobias Fink, will continue as the group’s managing directors
Dealer Tire, LLC has announced that it is making “a significant investment” in SimpleTire, a Philadelphia-based online tyre retailer that has developed an e-commerce platform and network of independent tyre distributors. Terms of Dealer Tire’s investment were not disclosed. The news follows Dealer Tire’s decision to invest in Tyrata – a Duke University tyre sensor and data startup – in February 2018.
15 months after bidding got underway, Qingdao-based Doublestar and its consortium of Chinese banks and investors bought 45 per cent of the South Korean tyremaker Kumho Tire over the Easter weekend. Whatever other clauses are written into the deal, following the release of shares issued for the purpose of the sale, Kumho Tire’s creditors will own a 23.1 per cent shareholding in the tyre maker, down from 42.01 per cent. This makes the Chinese tyre firm controlling shareholders in South Korea’s Kumho Tire.
The Executive Board of Axle Group Holdings Limited have ratified a £12 million, three-year inward investment strategy to help drive its business forward. Further announcements specifically relating to the firm’s acquisition strategy are expected.
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