News from Notch Consulting, Inc.

Sentury Tire North America has engaged Jones Lang Lasalle IP Inc. (JLL) of Atlanta to help it solicit offers from developers interested in becoming equity partners in the $530 million tire plant it’s planning to build near LaGrange, Ga.

Sentury is seeking a developer to construct the $200 million facility building which will then be subject to a 25-year sale-leaseback agreement.

The firm has secured a 400-acre plot in the LaGrange Callaway South Industrial Park for the plant, whose first-phase capacity is pegged at 12 million units a year with up to 1,000 employees.

“Sentury Tire is a major player in the tire business, and is looking for an equity partner in this state-of-the-art facility so it can rapidly continue to grow its North American market share,” said Todd Torok, JLL Managing Director. “We are expecting to see heavy interest from institutional investors both domestically and abroad.”

The new headquarters will help strengthen Sentury Tire’s North American presence, where it currently does 30 percent of its sales. The company has become one of the fastest growing tire manufacturers in the industry by selling its Sentury, Landsail, Groundspeed and Delinte brands.

Sourced article here.

JLL’s press release here.

With three new factories poised to begin production in the coming months, tire manufacturing in North America will see a significant boost.

Together the plants — Goodyear’s in San Luis Potosi, Mexico; Giti’s in Clarksville, Tenn; and Hankook’s in Richburg, S.C., represent nearly 17 million units of new annual capacity for passenger and light truck tires.

Giti and Hankook have scheduled ribbon-cuttings for October. Goodyear has yet to announce similar plans for its factory.

Goodyear’s plant, its first new factory in the Americas in 25 years, represents an investment of $550 million and is rated at 6 million tires a year.

Giti’s 1.8 milllion-sq.-ft. plant represents a $560 million investment. Capacity will be 5 million car and light truck tires a year

Hankook’s 1.5 million-sq.-ft. Clarksville plant represents a $580 million investment. The firm, a unit of South Korea’s Hankook Tire Co. Inc., plans to ramp up production steadily by 2018 to the rated capacity of 16,000 units a day.

Sourced article can be found here.

Goodyear broke ground yesterday on a passenger tire plant in Colmar-Berg, Luxembourg “that utilizes an innovative production process to meet growing customer and consumer demand for premium tires.”

Named Mercury, the proprietary process features highly-automated, interconnected workstations, using additive manufacturing technologies to efficiently produce premium tires in small-batch quantities on-demand for replacement and original equipment customers.

“Mercury addresses the increasing complexity in the tire industry as the number of vehicle models and options available to consumers continues to proliferate,” said Richard Kramer, Goodyear chairman, CEO and president.

The new facility, set to open in 2019, is in close proximity to Goodyear’s Luxembourg innovation center and tire proving grounds. The company is investing $77 million in the facility, which will produce approximately 500,000 tires annually.

Goodyear also has truck tire plant in Colmar-Berg.

Read the full press release here.