Goodbye Continental & Bridgestone – hello Gislaved

At the start of July, Russian tyre maker JSC Cordiant announced completing rebranding of the former Continental tyre plant in Kaluga. The facility is now producing Gislaved tyres, thanks to a brand rights deal negotiated with Continental in May 2023. It appears the Gislaved name will also take centre stage when tyre production at the ex-Bridgestone factory in Ulyanovsk restarts.

According to an article published by the national newspaper Kommersant on Monday, Bridgestone’s former factory in Ulyanovsk will resume operations in November and produce both mass-market and premium tyres under the Gislaved brand. Vadim Volodin, chief executive officer of Cordiant, attributes the speedy plant restart to “the preserved expertise and competencies of the Ulyanovsk plant team and the effective synergy of all production sites of the (Cordiant) cluster.”

Volodin previously confirmed a production capacity target of 2.4 million tyres a year for the 2016-inaugurated Ulyanovsk plant, commencing with 1.2 million tyres in 2025. Holding company S8 Capital purchased the facility last December and integrated the asset into its Cordiant business, which it acquired in May 2023 along with Continental’s tyre plant in Kaluga.

From Continental to Gislaved

The Kaluga plant has the capacity to make 3.5 million tyres annually and is already producing Gislaved tyres. The flagship of this portfolio, says Cordiant, is the Gislaved PremiumControl summer range for cars and SUVs, currently available in 13 sizes. Other Gislaved ranges include the UltraControl, TerraControl, Nord Frost, and Soft Frost.

“Today, the Gislaved plant is a high-tech production facility, with maximum automation and 100 per cent quality control,” says Pavel Borodatov, general director of the Kaluga factory. “Gislaved has a serious production and scientific-technical base, which allows it to constantly improve and update its range of tyres.”

The ex-Continental plant in Kaluga, Russia produces a range of Gislaved tyres, including the flagship PremiumControl (Image: Cordiant)

No. 2 in Russia

The Ulyanovsk and Kaluga factories, together with three existing Cordiant plants in Omsk and Yaroslavl, provide the tyre cluster managed by Cordiant with a total production capacity of 15 million tyres per annum. This makes the business the second largest tyre maker in Russia, after Tatneft. According to Kommersant, Tatneft, which acquired Nokian Tyres’ local business in March 2023 and renamed it Ikon Tyres, has the capacity to produce 17.5 million tyres a year.

Cordiant estimates that 45.7 million passenger vehicle tyres were sold in Russia last year, a 16 per cent increase on sales figures for 2022.