KRANJ, Slovenia (July 1, 2011)—Goodyear's Sava Tires d.o.o. subsidiary in Kranj will change its name July 1 to Goodyear Dunlop Sava Tires to align Sava with other companies within the Goodyear Dunlop Tires Europe organization.
The move also will allow the company to enhance its identity and leading position in its markets, a spokesman said.
Goodyear has been majority owner of Sava since late 1997, paying $120 million for a 60-percent stake in Sava's tire activities and 75 percent of the non-tire engineered rubber product businesses.
That deal marked the end of a 25-year-old technical and production off-take relationship between Sava and Austria's Semperit Reifen, and later Germany's Continental A.G. after Conti bought Semperit.
Goodyear later sold its stake in the non-tire businesses and increased its ownership stake in Sava Tires to 100 percent in two transactions, in 2002 and 2004.
Sava Tires's Kranj plant is among Goodyear's largest, turning out 22,000 car and light truck tires daily with about 1,400 employees.