Iran’s Sabalan Tyre Co. recently delayed plans to break ground on a $200 million radial tyre plant in Sanandaj, Kordestan province due to bad weather. However, the event is expected to be rescheduled and the project is not expected to be
Step off the plane and into a car at Qingdao airport and it won’t be long before you see a Sentury Tire billboard. While this particular Chinese tyre manufacturer isn’t a global player, it is rapidly internationalising and is selling millions of tyres in Europe (many of which end up in the UK). The firm is expanding very quickly and recent high-profile appointments and off-shore factory investment announcements suggest the firm is well and truly on a growth path. Towards the end of 2015, Tyres & Accessories met with export sales manager Hellen Yang and Davanti vice-general manager Wilson Zhang for a tour of the firm’s large and very modern factory near Qingdao airport.
The chief financial officer of Kesoram Industries reports that the company will invest Rs 3 billion (£29.3 million) into passenger car radial tyre production. Tridib Kumar Das told Indian financial daily Business Standard that the investment will be made in addition to the Rs 5 billion already spent on the car radial project, and that the company intends to bring its passenger car radials to market in May 2016.
With Michelin buying a stake in Allopneus as well as the complete Blackcircles business in the Spring; and with Apollo purchasing Reifen.com in November, it is fair to say we witnessed a trend towards manufacturer investment in online tyre businesses this year. Dig a little deeper and we are beginning to learn more about how tyre manufacturers are approaching this unavoidably important strategic area. With 2015 being something of a landmark year in this respect, Tyres & Accessories met with Blackcircles founder and managing director Mike Welch in Edinburgh to find out more.
Andrew Page Group, has secured further funding from its provider PNC Business Credit (PNC) part of one of the largest financial institutions in the United States. The new funding comes a year after its original deal see funding grow from £40 million to £50 million to support its growth plans.
Further to Tyres & Accessories’ detailed report on Qingdao Doublestar Tire Corp’s expansion plans last week, the company has released further information about the truck and OTR tyre joint venture it is setting up in Kazakhstan.
India’s MRF Ltd has reportedly received approval from the government of Telangana to instigate an Rs 9 billion (£89.5 million) expansion of its Sadasivpet tyre factory in the state’s Medak district. The company first made its expansion plans public in April 2015, quoting an investment sum of Rs 9.8 billion and claiming the project would create an additional 900 jobs. The Sadasivpet announcement followed news in March 2015 that the tyre maker would invest Rs 45 billion in an ‘ultra mega project’ to expand its Perambalur and Arakonam plants in Tamil Nadu.
Things are tough in China, but not every company is going under. While some are struggling others are expanding quickly. During the course of the recent Reifen China exhibition in Shanghai, Tyres & Accessories spoke with Qingdao Doublestar representatives and found our more about the company’s ambitious plans for rapid change despite the turbulent market conditions.
Ningxia Shenzhou Tire Co. Ltd. has broken ground on a new tyre plant in the city of Shizuishan in Ningxia Province, China. Company representatives have been quoted as saying that the production capacity forms the second phase of £1 billion project, the output of which is destined for high-end markets in the Europe and the USA.
TW Tyres has invested £40,000 into refurbishing its Rugby branch as, which was part-funded by the Michelin Auto Professional programme’s business development fund.
On 3 November Michelin announced a series of pan-European tyre manufacturing restructuring plans designed to address the dual pressures from the on-going negative effects of the 2008 global financial crisis and the sharp increase of low-cost imports – especially in the truck and bus tyre segment. In short this means the closure of its Ballymena truck tyre plant, alongside investment in its Dundee and Stoke facilities; as well as the closure of its Pneu Laurent retreading operation in Germany; not to mention further significant investments and some closures in Michelin’s Italian tyre production plants.
Michelin Tyre Plc is consulting on the closure of its Ballymena truck tyre factory at the same time as investing in the expansion of its Dundee car tyre and Stoke-on-Trent retreading sites. The Ballymena factory closure plans suggest the site will be run-down between now and a mid-2018 closure point. The Ballymena factory currently employs 860 people and Michelin says it is “committed to supporting those employees during consultation and in the forthcoming months”.
Continental AG’s tyre division is planning to “significantly expand” its Contidrom testing and development centre, north of Hannover. According to local press reports, the tyre manufacturer have already bought an adjacent 20-hectare area of forest. The expansion is said to focus on expanding wet handling test capacities which have been described as a “bottleneck” for the entire site. Nearly 11,000 tyre tests are currently conducted on-site.
On 1 October 2015 Nexen Tire broke ground on the site of its new plant in Zatec, Czech Republic. The company has committed to investing more than 829 million euros in building the new plant on 650,000 square metres of land in Zatec.
DriveRight, the global vehicle fitment data specialist, has secured a six-figure equity and mezzanine investment from Finance Wales to fund its ongoing expansion into new markets in Europe, Asia and the Americas.
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