In the last few months Michelin, and to a lesser extent, Goodyear, have seen a growth in shareholders, although this has not helped to boost their share prices. The clear winner in terms of price gain was Pirelli. The shares of Continental, Bridgestone and Cooper were not in demand – surprisingly in Cooper’s case, as the company made a profit like in the year before.
Krupp Elastomertechnik was created in 1996 by the merger of the company Werner & Pfleiderer Gummitechnik in Freudenberg and the rubber technology division of Krupp Kunststofftechnik. Thus two companies were united which, by their own admission, had cooperated in technology for a long time. This offers the rubber processing industry the opportunity of a “one-stop shop”, as it claims to a large extent to cover all essential preparation and process stages. According to Krupp, all machines, facilities and systems are the product of computer-aided development and construction on modern machine tools and manufacturing facilities and are installed and thoroughly checked before being handed over. In the recent past various new and advanced developments at Krupp Elastomer GmbH were particularly aimed at consolidating and improving the market position of the company. Largest market shares overall are held in Europe, but that does not mean that other regions of the world are less important to the company. For example Asia, which has so far produced 40 p.c. of the total turnover. At present this market is not too prosperous although there are a few positive signs, but that deficiency was almost made up by comparatively good sales in Europe, since the boom in the motor manufacturing industry and therefore in tyre production also benefits machine manufacturers. For the current year further growth in tyre sales figures is generally expected, at least in Germany. That should herald a bright future for machine manufacturers in the tyre industry, shouldn’t it?
Goodyear Tire shares shed around 10 p.c. of their value after J.P. Morgan Securities warned that investor confidence in management may begin to slip and with it Goodyear’s share price.
Nokian Tyres has agreed to purchase up to 94 % of the ISKO-shares. ISKO is the largest Finnish Tyre wholesaler and retailer. As soon as the transaction has been completed Nokian Tyres will have the largest equity in “Nordic Europe” consisting of 117 depots with 750 employees in Scandinavia together with Estonia and Latvia.
In the first nine months of this year, Continental’s sales rose to 6.8 billion Euros, with an EBIT of 385 million Euros. The largest contribution still comes from passenger car tyres, although Continental emphasises the growing importance of its role as a systems supplier. However, it seems that there will not be any striking developments in this segment that will affect the market in the immediate future. But Dr. Kessel is sure, saying: “Continental is on the way to Total Chassis Management.” Obviously, the company wants to enhance its profile at the expense of its tyre competitors, many of whose shares are performing badly on the world’s stock markets. However, Continental’s share price at the moment is also disappointing.
Avon Rubber has blamed falling car production in the UK for a 40% drop in annual profits to £3.3 million. Direct sales of automotive and technical products to Ford and Rover fell £7.6 million to £27.1 million. Shares fell 12.5p to 455p.
Goodyear has told bank analysts that it will close a large factory in Italy that produces six million tyres a year. Goodyear produced about 55 million tyres in Europe this year and intends to reduce the production capacity from 72 million tyres (after the Dunlop take-over) to about 62 million by 2002. After Goodyear’s shares lost more than 40 per cent of their value, they announced plans to close more than one factory and increase production in the remaining European plants by introducing a seven day operation.
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