News from the tyre wholesale sector
US company Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. has announced a new corporate structure from Dec. 1st. The reorganised company will be known as Bridgestone/Firestone Americas Holding Inc (BFAH), which will be the holding company for a number of subsidiaries. John Lampe will be CEO and president of BFAH. The change has been made to take advantage of better financing rates and to re-focus on core businesses.
Nokian has released interim financial figures for the first nine months of this year. These show an increase in net sales of 7.4 per cent to 277.7 m Euro and an operating profit of 25.3 m Euro (11.9 m Euro for the same period last year). Net profit reached 9.1 m Euro (2.7 m in 2000). Nokian’s target for the year is to achieve a sales growth of around 10 per cent and improve on last year’s profitability.
Just Tyres Holdings, the group consisting of the Just Tyres retail chain, the Southam Tyres wholesale business, Autostop and Autostop fleet network, has called in the Administrative Receiver. 40 of the 90 Just Tyres depots were closed down immediately, resulting in 100 job losses, or one third of the total group workforce. Autostop Fleet has also closed down. The Receiver is looking for buyers, either for the group as a whole or its component divisions separately and reports “considerable interest”.
Aftermarket wholesaler SDL, which went into Receivership when parent company Finelist collapsed recently, has been purchased by Belgian exhaust manufacturer, Bosal Group. SDL was one of the biggest customers of Bosal UK and the acquisition ensures continuity of supply of Bosal exhausts, catalytic converters and other accessories to the UK aftermarket. No details about the terms of the deal was revealed.
The alloy wheel market in the UK is nothing like the size of , say, that in Germany, and reliable estimates of its size are hard to come by, although one educated guess is £500 m at wholesale prices. Reasons for the comparatively small market are manifold, varying from the way cars are sold in the UK to the effect of the large company car/fleet sector, which accounts for over half of new car sales. Fleet buyers do not welcome anything which increases costs, and alloy wheels fall into this category. Despite this drawback, the UK alloy wheel market is growing, due largely to increasing fitment in the OE sector. In the aftermarket, it is those who have disposable income to spend and who are fashion conscious that buy alloys and, as with most other fashion accessories, this means the young. As with other fashions, there are labels which are “in” and others which lack street cred and, again as with other fashions, the successful designs spawn many imitations. So, in order to stay ahead of the pack, the leading design labels have to introduce new designs – to reinvent the wheel.
Following the recent shake-up of its UK truck tyre operations, Continental has announced a “strategic agreement” with wholesaler Kings Road Tyres, whereby KRT will become the sole distributor of Uniroyal truck tyres in the UK and Ireland, effective September 1st. The new business will be separate from KRT’s wholesale operation and will be called “Uniroyal Truck Tyres.” Uniroyal car and van tyres are unaffected by the agreement and will still be managed by Continental.
TecCom (Munich), an internet wholesale platform for automotive accessories, has a new Managing Director. Jürgen Buchert (44) has worked as Sales Director for Western and Eastern Europe in the automotive aftermarket division of Bosch for the past five years. At the moment 21 European automotive part manufacturers – among them tyre producer Continental – support TecCom.
Peter Schütterle is once again in the driver’s seat at Pneuhage after the resignation of three managers. Hanshugo Sürth, Kurt Scholl and Holger Abeln left the company on 13th March. The company, one of the largest tyre retail and wholesale groups in Germany, made a loss last year. This came as a big surprise – possibly even for Schütterle, the owner of the group, who until now has not been involved in the group on a day-to-day basis.
Under the terms of the agreement Reedijk Banden Import will operate autonomously and current managing director, Marcus Reedijk will retain responsibility for the day to day running of the company. The Van den Ban group expects to realise a much stronger market position for its wholesale tyre activities. As a result of the acquisition the turnover of Van den Ban Autobanden B.V. is expected to rise to Euro 160 million.
A year ago, there were rumours that Yokohama was seeking an alliance with Michelin. TYRES & ACCESSORIES recently visited the company and, in addition to factory and R&D facility visits, interviewed the President of Yokohama Rubber Company, Mr. Yasuo Tominaga. Mr. Tominaga spoke of the company’s wide-ranging restructuring plan and whether a company the size of Yokohama can survive alone in a global market dominated by the big three manufacturers.
One of the UK’s leading tyre wholesalers, R. H. Claydon Ltd, suffered minimal fire damage at the end of last week at their Stockport, Cheshire warehouse. The fire started in an adjoining building belonging to another company and spread to the warehouse, but no stock was damaged and the sales division continues to operate normally.
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