Sumitomo Rubber Group
Falken Tire Corporation, the Japanese brand’s North American operation, recently promoted Ken Masaoka to the role of vice-president of corporate planning. Masaoka, who joined parent company Sumitomo Rubber Industries in 1993, was previously Falken Tire’s director of corporate planning.
The sale of Apollo Tyres South Africa (ATSA) to Sumitomo Rubber Industries has been closed, report Sumitomo and Apollo Tyres. In exchange for US$60 million, the Japanese firm now holds the rights to the Dunlop tyre brand in a further 30 African and two Indian Ocean region countries. Also included in the deal is the 9,600 tyre per day Ladysmith PCR factory that Apollo acquired as part of its Dunlop South Africa purchase in 2006, the ATSA distribution and sales network, and the ATSA distribution, sales and head office teams. Apollo retains the 2006-acquired Durban factory, which manufactures TBR and off-road tyres.
At the same time as making its initial public appearance at the Tokyo Motor Show, the Dunlop Enasave 100 – the world’s first tyre entirely made from fossil-free materials – has gone on sale in Japan. Sumitomo Rubber Industries shares that the Enasave 100 came onto the market on 22 November; it is initially available in size 195/65R15 91H at a listed retail price of ¥21,105 (£126.50).
North America’s greatest automotive products show gets underway today, and tyre makers are making sure the anticipated 60,000 plus visitors know about their latest developments.
As work on Sumitomo Rubber Industries’ tyre plant in Brazil nears completion, groundbreaking was held for the company’s second tyre factory outside of Asia. On 18 September, a groundbreaking ceremony was conducted at the Sumitomo Rubber AKO Lastik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. (SAT) factory site in Turkey’s Cankiri Province.
Sumitomo Rubber Industries has published the English-language version of its "CSR Report 2013", which was originally released in Japanese in June. The report details the group’s corporate social responsibility activities during 2012.
SRI Tire Trading, the tyre exporting company belonging to the Sumitomo Rubber Group, is to increase the export prices of its Dunlop, Falken and Sumitomo brand passenger car, light truck, truck and bus and motorcycle tyres in Europe, North and South America, Asia and the Pacific, Africa and the Middle East. Increases will be implemented gradually from July onwards, and will range between 5 and 15 per cent, depending on tyre type, size and market. The company, however, reports that most increases will be in the vicinity of 5 to 10 per cent.
The increases are due to, SRI adds, surging raw material prices, including those for rubber and crude oil. The company says the level of these increases since last year is now to great for it to absorb internally, and thus it must introduce this, its second price increase this year – a 3 to 7 per cent price rise was also announced in the first half of the year.
Sumitomo Rubber Group has released interim results for the financial year ended December 31, 2007. The Group as a whole generated sales of 567,306 million yen (£2.68 billion) during 2007, up from 534,086 million yen (£2.52 billion) the previous year. The bulk of these sales came from the company’s SRI Tire Trading division, which recorded 474,282 million yen (£2,24 billion) in sales last year, an increase from 430,630 million yen (£2.04 billion) in 2006.
SRI Sports Ltd., a division of the Sumitomo Rubber Group, has announced that it will acquire the US company Cleveland Golf Co. for US$132.5 million. The Japanese sporting goods maker will buy all outstanding shares in the California based company, the fifth-ranking maker of golf clubs in the United States, from Quiksilver Inc. SRI Sports hopes to complete the share acquisition procedures by the year-end. Through the acquisition, SRI Sports, which makes Dunlop brand golf and tennis goods, is aiming to expand its business in the United States.
SRI Tire Trading Ltd., the tyre export branch of the Sumitomo Rubber Group, will increase the prices of the company’s Dunlop, Falken and Sumitomo brand tyres for passenger cars, light trucks, trucks and buses and motorcycles in the Asia, Near and Middle East, North America, Europe, Central and South America, Africa and Pacific nations beginning September. The price increase will be in the range of 5 to 10 per cent, depending on tyre categories, tyre sizes and markets.
Samir G. Gibara (61), chairman and chief executive officer of The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, has been elected to the board of directors of Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd. in Kobe, Japan. Gibara’s election is in conjunction with Goodyear’s 10 percent ownership of SRI, following the companies’ global alliance, completed in September 1999. This ownership makes Goodyear SRI’s second-largest shareholder. SRI holds 1.4 percent of Goodyear’s common stock.
Sylvain G. Valensi (58), who has 34 years’ service with Goodyear, latterly as Vice President Goodyear Europe, has, since the joint venture with Sumitomo Rubber Industries (SRI), assumed the role of Vice President of Goodyear Dunlop Tires Europe. Talking to this magazine during the recent “Reifen 2000” exhibition in Essen, he stressed that the major brands Goodyear and Dunlop will remain independent and will almost be in competition with each other.
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