On 17 January, Sentury said it will adjust its financing plan through the stock market and specifically non-public offering of shares. After the adjustment, the tyre manufacturer will obtain no more than 2.8 billion yuan (about £330 million; 380 million euros), which is far lower than the 4 billion yuan (about £480 million; 540 million euros) proposed in the previous plan.
Tyre pyrolysis project Wastefront AS and Hulteberg Chemistry & Engineering AB have been awarded a 2 million-euro grant from the Eureka Eurostars funding programme and the Norwegian Research Council as well as the Swedish Innovation Agency. Total project-funding amounts to 2.076 million euros – half from Eurostars and half from the other project partners.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission reviewed and approved Sailun’s convertible bond public issuance application on 13 September. The tyre company plans to raise about 2 billion yuan (about 250.2 million pounds, 286.3 million euros), mainly for constructing two factories in Vietnam and Cambodia. Sailun said that investing in two overseas factories could further expand its tyre production capacity overseas and increase its manufacturing scale and market share.
On 12 August, Jiangsu General stated that it would issue shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in a non-public funding initiative. The stock issuance plan shows that Jiangsu General is prepared to issue shares to no more than 35 specific investors. The number of shares to be issued shall not exceed 386,578,320 units, which is 30 per cent of Jiangsu General’s total share capital before the issuance of shares. The total amount of funds raised does not exceed 1.018 billion yuan (£124.42 million, 147.15 million euros). It is reported that HOdo Group, the controlling shareholder of Jiangsu General, plans to subscribe for shares in cash, with a subscription amount of not less than 30 million yuan (£3.67 million, 4.34 million euros) and not more than 200 million yuan (£24.45 million, 28.91 million euros).
On 28 June 2022, Huntington Business Credit announced it closed $35 million of new credit facilities with American Kenda Rubber Industrial Co. Ltd. (Kenda USA). According to Huntington Business Credit, the funds were used to “refinance existing indebtedness and provide ongoing working capital growth financing.
RoboTire, a Detroit-based automotive robotics and automation startup closed a US$7.5 million investment round in October. RoboTire’s patented system uses robots to change tyres “in a fraction of the time human operators can” purportedly reducing “multiple-hour experiences to under 15 minutes”. The Series A investment round was led by The Reinalt-Thomas Corporation, which sells tyres through 1000+ branches trading under the Discount Tire and America’s Tire brands in the USA. Automotive Ventures, Detroit Venture Partners, 640 Oxford Ventures and several angel investors participated in the funding round.
Enso aims to disrupt the market by combining sustainable, energy-efficient, high-mileage anti-particulate, electric vehicle-orientated tyres with a direct-to-customer, tyres-as-a-service business model. Following the news that an Enso tyre-equipped Renault Zoe set a new hypermiling record at least partly based on its tyres, Tyres & Accessories found out more about the company, its products and its financial position.
Versarien plc, which makes nanocompounds for tyre applications amongst other things, is was awarded a product development funding from the Defence, Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), a part of the Ministry of Defence at the end of November 2020.
Kerr’s Tyres & Auto, one of Northern Ireland’s leading suppliers of tyres and automotive services, has secured a half-million pound loan from Ulster Bank to support it through the coronavirus crisis. It has been delivered through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS).
The Motor Traders Association of Queensland (MTAQ) has become an investor in innovative Australian tyre recycler, Green Distillation Technologies Corporation (GDTC), which has discovered a process that turns end-of-life tyres into high value oil, carbon and steel.
Less than a year after Tirescanner.com was founded, at the start of November, the business reported that it is live in Florida. This means Tirescanner already covers 1200 postcodes codes, matching consumers with products from a range of hundreds of thousands of tyres and – crucially – connecting them with “the best local retailers”. At the moment this works on a next day install, but the plan is to take this to a same-day level. And more states are said to be coming fast. We’re used to pretty rapid progress when it comes to dotcom start-ups, but such fast growth is more understandable when you consider that Tirescanner is driven by Blackcircles.com founder Mike Welch. Tyres & Accessories recently caught up with Welch in order to find out how the company plans to continue and sustain this growth.
Professor Richard Thompson OBE, who leads the International Marine Research Unit at the University of Plymouth, has questioned claims made by the Marine Conservation Society relating the role played by tyre wear in marine microplastic pollution.
Banbury-headquartered First Line Ltd, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of premium quality automotive components to the vehicle aftermarket, has secured £20 million in funding from Santander Corporate & Commercial. The funding will help the firm expand its exports and capitalise on growth opportunities in overseas markets, it states.
Prometeon Tyre Group has arranged an inaugural 600 million euros of credit facilities consisting of 450 million euros of term facility and a 150 million euros of revolving facility. The new credit facilities mature on March 2020, with two one-year extension options. According to Prometeon, the credit facilities secure the firm’s “financial independence and autonomy following its separation from the Pirelli Group and optimise the company’s capital structure”.
Greg Clark MP, Secretary of State for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, has given the green light to 5*StarS as part of the national strategy to establish the UK as a global centre for the development, testing and commercialisation of Connected Autonomous Vehicles.
Sentury
Wastefront
Sailun
Jiangsu General
RoboTire
Enso
Kerr’s Tyres