Industrial Tyres
Camso, the off-road tyre specialist acquired by Michelin in 2018, has grown its off-highway transportation tyre service and distribution presence in North America with the acquisition of two material-handling solutions businesses from Metro Industrial Tires. These businesses are based in Chicago and provide service to the market via their own press truck fleets.
Today Yokohama announced that it is consolidating its OTR tyre businesses into Yokohama Off-Highway Tires, which could be read as a prelude to the announcement Yokohama’s bid for the Prometeon tyre business. Roughly a year after the story broke, Yokohama’s bid for Prometeon isn’t the best kept secret in the tyre industry. Tyres & Accessories first heard talk of Yokohama’s bid for the ex-Pirelli industrial and commercial vehicle tyre business back in July 2019. The news was reported world-wide after we broke the story in September 2019, followed days later by third-party confirmation from the Chinese side of the deal. At that time, the deal was set to go public by the end of 2019. A few months later at the start of 2020, the timeframe switched to an end-of-first-quarter 2020 deadline. Then the coronavirus pandemic happened. And in the months that have followed things have gone quiet. So, where is Yokohama’s bid for Prometeon up to? The latest news is that deal is still on-track, but that there have been a few changes along the way. Here, Tyres & Accessories brings an update on the status of the acquisition and offers a different view on the deal by looking at it from a South American perspective.
Global Rubber Industries (Pvt.) Ltd. (GRI) has spent the last 18 years since its foundation cultivating its niche in the industrial, agricultural and construction tyre sectors. With ambitious capacity and expansion plans underway, Tyres & Accessories interviewed managing director Prabhash Subasinghe and learnt more about the company’s plans to build on its growth foundations.
This interview appears in full in the November edition of Tyres & Accessories magazine. Not yet a subscriber? You can change that here.
Specialty tyre manufacturer GRI is adding a new mixing facility in the Mirigama Export Processing Zone (MEPZ) in Sri Lanka. The new mixing facility will have capacity to produce 200 tonnes day, up from the current capacity of 50 – 60 metric tonnes a day, and is being interpreted as a pre-cursor to increased tyre output.
GKN Wheels’ multi-million-pound investment programme at its Telford factory has resulted in the achievement of record targets. Despite a number of obstacles, not least the impact Coronavirus pandemic has had on the plant’s operational capabilities, the new manufacturing plant is now producing more than three times as many wheels as the old plant, with 55 high-quality off-highway wheels now being manufactured every hour. With the new line now fully operational, the old lines and assembly cells have now been decommissioned and disposed of.
Continental is changing the name of its StraddleMaster+ port tyre line to TerminalMaster V.ply. This change of name is also accompanied by a significant expansion of the tyre’s application recommendations: Instead of primarily being intended for use on straddle carriers, Continental says “intensive tests in the laboratory and in real-life use” have led it to additionally recommend the tyre for use at airports and for heavy-duty transport in the industrial sector.
GRI recently hosted politicians from Sri Lanka’s Presidential Task Force on Economic Revival and Poverty Alleviation. Specifically, national dignitary Basil Rajapaksa made a visit to GRI’s new factory, which purportedly one of the largest specialty tyre plants in Sri Lanka and the first to produce radial agriculture tyres in the country.
Trelleborg Group has reported “satisfactory” second quarter 2020 financial results “under the circumstances”, the company stated in its second quarter results. Specifically, Trelleborg Group organic sales declined 19 per cent, albeit with an improvement in the latter part of the quarter. As a result, net sales for the second quarter declined 18 per cent to 7,689 million Swedish krone. Pre-tax profits (EBIT) declined 29 per cent, corresponding to an operating margin of 12.3 per cent. At the same time, operating cash flow was strengthened “significantly”, according to the company.
Trelleborg’s reorganisation, which gave greater prominence to tyres and wheels via its Trelleborg Wheel Systems business, was detailed at the end of February, just prior to the global spread of Covid-19 causing monumental disruption throughout Europe. Tyres & Accessories commented at the time that we planned to meet UK managing director Richard Lyons for the first time since his January appointment at the event in Sweden – as it turned out, Lyons was unable to make the trip for reasons detailed later. At the end of June, T&A met Lyons – fittingly on Microsoft Teams – to discuss how the pandemic has affected the market and the company’s response to the challenges of 2020, in addition to talking about how he is settling into his new role within the company.
Over the past 12 months, Continental upgraded its agricultural tyre range with very high flexion (VF) tyres and other technological improvements, such as the single filament bead core on its CombineMaster. These improvements have made the manufacturer’s agri range more versatile, safer on the road, and more efficiencient in the field; VF tyres help to reduce soil compaction, which helps to promote increased yields. Conti re-entered the high-value agricultural tyre market in 2017 with the radial Tractor70 and Tractor85 ranges, with portfolio expansions following in the years since. This year has yielded many significant challenges for the tyre sector – but agricultural tyres have provided a much less gloomy segment outlook than others. Tyrepress asked Ivonne Bierwirth, global head of marketing Commercial Specialty Tyres, about the Continental business unit’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and how it has affected both its agricultural tyre activities and those of other commercial specialist tyre segments.
Camso Germany’s sales team has been integrated into Michelin Reifenwerke. The manufacturer of Camso and Solideal brand off-road tyres, wheels, tracks and chain systems is now under the umbrella of Michelin Off- and Highway Transportation (OHT). Michelin acquired the Canadian company in 2018.
Continental has announced the reorganisation of various global specialist tyre activities into a single ‘Specialty Tyres’ business unit. Formed on 1 July, the company has combined its ‘Commercial Specialty Tires’, ‘Two Wheel Tires’ and ‘Hoosier Racing Tire’ business areas under the new umbrella unit. The result of the reorganisation means the entire Continental speciality tyre business will be developed, manufactured and distributed worldwide under the new unit. It brings together tyres for material handling, the agricultural, port, and construction sectors, bicycle and motorcycle tyres, and tyres for racing. The move continues the evolution of various specialist tyre segments within the company, begun at the start of 2013, when Conti renamed its industrial tyres business ‘Commercial Specialty Tires’.
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Künz
Trelleborg
Trelleborg
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Michelin
Continental