2015 Top 10 Tire Merge & Acquisition

In 2015, global tire industry has been reshuffled. Whatever Pirelli married Sinochem, or Goodyear divorced with Sumitomo, all showed that new tire pattern had been forming.

The following are 2015 Top 10 Assets Merge and Acquisition Events in Tire Industry which sorted out by Tireworld.com.cn.

Pirelli married to China

In march, China National Chemical Corporation (Sinochem) formally bid for Italian tyres tycoon Pirelli , and successfully completed acquisition in October.

Low end, low price are always the brand of Chinese tires in the world, but the acquisition is a significant step for Chinese tires in international high-end market.

Huayi back-door listing

In April, Double Coin Holdings’ big shareholder Huayi Group injected its core assets into Double Coin Holdings.

After backdoor listing, Double Coin is not only a tire manufacturer, but also has Huayi’s core assets including energy industry, chemical industry, fine chemical industry and chemical service.

According to Double Coin’s financial report, the company has up to 177 million yuan of deficit in the past three quarters. In December, the company openly raised financing for non-tire projects.

Michelin eyes on e-shop

Since Michelin tire first tested e-commerce in 2014, the company made lot effort on e-market channel construction.

Michelin Chi officially launched O2O mode in March 2015; bought French Internet tire distributor Allopneus’ 40% stake April and bought UK's top tire sales web site, Blackcircles.com at a cost of 50 million pounds in May.

Double Star Tire takes over Deruibao

In early 2015, the formally top 75 global tire manufacture Deruibao fell into bankruptcy. In June, Qingdao Double Star signed agreement with Deruibao to acquire the latter.

After acquisition, Qingdao Double Star has realized ranking at Top 20 in the world from 2014’s Top 33.

Chengshan buys out Cooper Chenshan

In October, Chengshan Group bought out Cooper Chengshan’s equities.

The "battle" since 2013, and is ended with Cooper Chengshan completely stepping out. It is a heavy blow for Cooper who wanted to bite part of Chinese auto market.

Goodyear and Sumitomo Rubber "divorce"

Goodyear said goodbye to Sumitomo Rubber in October,ended their 16-year global alliance.

According to the agreement, Goodyear will pay Sumitomo Rubber $271 million this year and another $55 million of debt in the next three years. Their joint ventures in North America, Europe, Japan and other places were under restructuring.

Hengfeng swallows Wosen Rubber

In December, Shandong Hengfeng Rubber & Plastic Co., Ltd. has acquired 51 % share of Wosen Rubber. The deal has been reached agreement and planned to operate as soon as possible.

Wosen rubber was established in April 2007, with 219 million yuan of registered capital. The company mainly produced all-steel radial tire, half steel radial tire, engineering tire, bias tire, solid tire and also owned owned Defen Import & Export Trade Co.,Ltd, which was focusing on international tire trade.

Hengfeng Rubber & Plastics is the largest local tire enterprise and post 1.623 billion dollars of sales revenue in 2015, ranking the 21st in Global Top 75 Tires ahead of Chinese Double Coin Tire, Sailun Tire, Fengshen Tire, Guizhou Tyre, Double Star Tire etc..

Trelleborg accelerates global expansion

In November, Swedish Trelleborg Group bought Czech CGS holding company and Brazil Standard Tyre.

Trelleborg also bought Australian agricultural tire distributer Armstrong Tyres. Besides that, it is also expanding investment in China and improving production capacity in Chinese base.

Apollo Purchase Germany Distributor

After failure in purchasing Cooper Chengshan Tire, Indian Apollo Tyre didn’t give up its expansion plans. In November, it bought one of Germany's largest tire dealers Reifen.com.

In additional, Apollo Tire and Beijing Auto Group set up a joint venture factory in Hebei Province. In the future, Apollo may seek more buyout targets and aims to enter into Global Top 10 Tire Enterprises.

Bridgestone "pursue" Pep Boys

Different from Michelin purchasing online channel, Bridgestone mainly targeted on the terminal retailers in 2015, but its M&A process obviously did not go well.

After getting majority stakes in Slovakia tyre retailers A.R.S. Company, Bridgestone planned to buy Philadelphia-based Pep Boys for $835 million, but it's going to end up paying $947 million instead because investor Carl Icahn tried to scoop out Pep Boys for himself. And news comes out on Christmas Eve, just to add insult to injury.

Bridgestone and Pep Boys announced their merger in October, with Bridgestone buying out Manny, Moe and Jack for $15 a share. Then, in early December, Icahn stepped in with an offer of $15.50 per share. (He controls another car service chain, Auto Plus, so acquiring Pep Boys could help him turn a competitor into an asset.)

Bridgestone agreed to match Icahn's offer, raising the deal's total price by $28 million. Icahn took the bidding war up a notch by offering $16.50 per share this time.

So on Christmas Eve, Bridgestone had to raise its own offer to $17 per share, or $947 million total.

But is this the end? Icahn said that he was willing to pay over a billion dollars for Pep Boys. He even put a "ratchet" mechanism into play that would automatically raise his bid 10 cents a share above whatever Bridgestone's offer is, up to $18.10.