Michelin boosts profits in first-half 2014
An absence of the high restructuring costs of a year ago and low raw material prices have helped increase Michelin’s net first-half 2014 income by 23.1 per cent despite a 4.8 per cent decrease in net sales.
An absence of the high restructuring costs of a year ago and low raw material prices have helped increase Michelin’s net first-half 2014 income by 23.1 per cent despite a 4.8 per cent decrease in net sales.
Private equity firm Calculus Capital has invested £2.5 million in WheelRight Ltd, the tyre pressure monitoring company.
Richard Moore, Investment Director, Calculus Capital said: “We are very excited to invest in WheelRight and its market-leading, patented technology. The WheelRight sensor array provides a very hi-tech solution to a practical, every day problem. It will help to lower the costs of motoring, reduce the number of road accidents and limit carbon emissions. We are pleased to be able to support a leading UK technology company that has developed a product with significant global potential.”
Data collated by the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) highlights the best and worst performing areas when it comes to road safety improvements. The top three areas for reductions are Nottinghamshire, Tower Hamlets and Chester/Chester West; with some 98, 81 and 78 fewer people respectively killed or seriously injured on the roads in these local authority areas in 2013 compared to 2012.
Members of the TerraClean network have teamed up to take part in the Two Ball Rally in a bid to raise much needed funds for Macmillan Cancer Support.
The Two Ball rally is the only European road trip and banger rally where all vehicles are welcome and takes in nine countries covering more than 1200 miles in just four days. The rally will pass through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Monte Carlo and back to France, finishing in Nice. Along the way the rally will pass through the Black Forest of Germany, the famous Stelvio Mountain Pass, Lake Como and Monaco.
A study carried out for Kwik Fit Mobile suggests that almost half of us take our work with us when we go on holidays. When adjusted to fit the 30.6 million people in the country’s workforce, the ICM survey of 2,003 adults in the UK shows that this 46 per cent of the workforce spends an average of 5 hour and 24 minutes of holiday time a year on work-related activities – a total of 3,171,550 days of extra work.
The Lexus Group has selected Yokohama tyres as original equipment for its new crossover SUV, the Lexus NX. Exact fitments will vary according to region, however worldwide the tyre maker is supplying two models of tyre in a total of three sizes. The Yokohama tyres selected for the Lexus NX are the BluEarth E51 in size 225/60R18 100H and the Geolandar G91 in sizes 225/60R18 100H and 225/65R17 102H.
Slough based City 1st is introducing Cameo and UniSerV from CAM across its four truck depots. The commercial tyre specialist wanted to go paperless and install an intuitive system to help its team of fitters to transition to a mobile system. The company states that it reviewed the options and gained feedback from other users before deciding to adopt CAM’s technologies.
A Micheldever/Protyre survey has confirmed children’s despicable taste in movies. Asked for their favourite film of the summer, Despicable Me 2 beat Frozen and How to Train your Dragon to first place. The survey draws attention to the need to keep children happy in the back of cars on family holidays, with portable video players an increasingly popular method of doing so.
After two weeks of intensive rescue talks, on Thursday 25th July, Unipart Automotive announced that it and its private equity owners (H2 Equity Partners) had failed to find a buyer for the loss-making company and had therefore called in administrators KPMG. Before that news made it to press, the administrators sold a comparatively small part of the business to a newly formed joint venture made up of car parts/workshop equipment distributors Andrew Page and The Parts Alliance. The deal sees Andrew Page acquire 21 branches and The Parts Alliance a total of 12. A total of 361 staff employed across these sites have transferred to Andrew Page and The Parts Alliance with immediate effect. Andrew Page announced it had rejoined The Parts Alliance on 8 July, the same day the news broke that Unipart Automotive had put the administrators on alert and was seeking out a rescue plan.
When the news broke that Unipart had entered administration, it will have been something of a blow for the 1800-odd “loyal” employees of the company. Indeed the only good thing for employees was the end of the speculation roller coaster than began with managers suggesting a rescue could come in 36 hours, followed by reports that Euro Car Parts was a front runner, and finally the announcement two weeks later that nothing could be done for the company. But what about staff?
Organiser of the Latin American & Caribbean Tyre Expo, the Latin Expo Group has donated $10,000 dollars to Aldeas Infantiles SOS Panama. Around the World in SOS deals with children who are at risk when their basic needs are neglected terms of material, emotional, health care and education, or are abused – either because they have lost their parents, never have known them, or when parents do not have the resources or skills to properly care for their children.
Two years ago, Goodyear Tire & Rubber said it would hire 1,000 United States ex-military personnel over the coming three years. Today, the company announced it surpassed this goal more than a year early, and has pledged to hire an additional 1,000 veterans. The company has also formed an employee veterans association, which is devoted to supporting the transition to civilian life and enabling internal networking opportunities.
Following the collapse of Unipart Automotive last week, competitor and former front-runner in potential rescue talks, Euro Car Parts, has announced that it plans to create 1500 jobs over the next 18 months. The fact that this figure is roughly equivalent to the entire size of the former Unipart Automotive workforce should not be overlooked. Neither should the obvious question – how? With this and the Unipart collapse in mind, what looks clear is that, compare with the first half of this year, the automotive aftermarket will be a significantly different place.
A new study from Churchill Car Insurance of over 2,000 UK adults reveals that the majority (56 per cent) say they would not purchase a driverless car and a quarter (25 per cent) believes that autonomous vehicles will not be safe.
The Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMI) has appointed Peter Johnson as the new deputy chairman with immediate effect.
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