The last few weeks have seen well-known automotive retailer and autocentre owner Halfords Group make a major move into the tyre retail space. Of course, this is nothing new, the company has been travelling towards tyre retail for about a decade. The last push of this scale was in February 2010 when the company bought Nationwide Autocentres for £73 million – a move that was laden with history of its own.
Halfords Group plc bought McConechy’s Tyre Service Limited, the sixth-largest tyre retail business in the UK, on 7 November 2019 for £8.5 million. This makes the newly-expanded Halfords Autocentres the second largest tyre retailer in the UK.
Trail, the European private equity investment firm, today announces the signature of an exclusivity agreement to acquire Electropoli, a leading provider of surface treatment services in Europe, notably for the automotive industry.
Kordsa has spent roughly US$100 million buying Fabric Development Inc (FDI) and Textile Products Inc. (TPI), which provide advanced composite materials to the commercial aviation industry. With these acquisitions Kordsa aims to follow the same path that led to leadership in tyre reinforcement technologies.
European FinTyre Distribution Limited (EfTD) has appointed Massimiliano Messina as chief financial officer of the group.
Messina role makes him responsible for optimising the financial resources of the group and securing the synergy between its different companies. In addition, he will coordinate the merger and acquisition activity with the support of the management team and will report directly to Mauro Pessi, CEO of the group.
European finTyre Distribution (EFD) has been growing rapidly since its private equity owners Bain Capital backed the acquisition of Italian tyre wholesaler Fintyre back in March 2017. Since then the company has been on the acquisition trail, buying Pneusmarket and Franco Gomma in Italy as well as Reiff and most recently Reifen Krieg in Germany – all in order to build a “European tyre distribution group”. Tyres & Accessories recently spoke with Fintyre managing director Mauro Pessi and asked who’s next and what’s the exit plan?
By acquiring a 75 per cent equity stake in high-tech digital prototype company ‘Model Solution Ltd.’, Hankook Tire hopes to benefit from synergies gained by combining the company’s know-how with that of its affiliate, super-size mould equipment company M&K Technology. The tyre maker paid KRW 68.6 billion (£47.3 million) for the stake.
On Wednesday 28th February, Messe Frankfurt bought Automechanika Birmingham organiser Forest Exhibitions.
According to a statement released on 1 March, Messe Frankfurt – the world’s third biggest exhibition organiser and the owner of the Automechanika name – the acquisition is designed to set up a UK subsidiary.
In an interview published by German financial daily Börsen-Zeitung on Saturday, chief financial officer of Continental AG, Wolfgang Schäfer, stated that the company has set at least 3 billion euros aside for expanding within automotive markets through acquisitions.
No I am not talking about the unqualifiable rumours that Doublestar made an offer of up to 250 million euros for Zenises. Rather, that in the first week of September we learnt that Doublestar’s proposed acquisition of Kumho was collapsing before the firm’s eyes after the Qingdao-Chinese tyre manufacturer asked for a double-digit discount. And it is also worth considering what all this means for the wider tyre manufacturing sector.
The Zircotec Group has acquired performance exhaust coating and thermal management specialist Performance 1 Coatings (P1C). The takeover, which includes 100 per cent of the P1C business, widens the breadth of Zircotec Group’s product range, which now includes high quality performance coatings at every price point. The group states that the buy-out will enable P1C and its performance aftermarket customers to benefit from future product enhancements by Zircotec’s technology, OE-expertise and extensive in-house R&D facilities.
The Parts Alliance has acquired BMS Superfactors, their Greater Manchester-based associate member. BMS Superfactors has four branches in Bury, Oldham, Rochdale and Dukinfield, collectively employing over 120 staff.
In response to a contracting market in 2013 and 2014, Italian wholesale giant Fintyre underwent a reorganisation, involving relocation north from Empoli to Seriate, Bergamo and a staff reduction of 60 employees. The overhaul of the company structure did not end there; it started a process in 2015, completed in late 2016, which has changed the face of Fintyre. This, it states, has consolidated its position as the leader of the Italian market with a share of around 25 per cent. In 2015, British investment firm BlueGem Capital Partners, which at that point held a 90 per cent share in Fintyre after its original 2009 investment, was recapitalised following a major financing agreement with GSO Capital Partners. The company then made two major acquisitions – Pneusmarket and Franco Gomme – which have helped to increase turnover from 255 million in 2014 to an estimate of more than 400 million euros in 2016.
New year. New diary. New balance sheet. New company? In this respect, 2016 got off to a flying start. No sooner had the year begun than we received news of some high profile, three-digit-million pound mergers and acquisitions. The first and the largest was the acquisition of well-known garage data supplier Autodata (see page 32, Company New section for complete details). However, within 24 hours this was followed by the potentially UK tyre wholesale and retail-changing announcement that Sumitomo Rubber Industries had acquired Micheldever Tyre Services.
HgCapital-owned Parts Alliance Group has acquired Waterloo (Motor Trade) Ltd. The company will continue to trade under its own name, serving customers in the East Riding of Yorkshire, with branches in Hull, Beverley and Bridlington. Waterloo was founded in 1928 by current managing director Jim Munday’s grandfather.