The last 12 months have been a busy year indeed for the rubber industry, from the sale of Italian tire maker Pirelli to a Chinese business, to the ending of a 16-year relationship between Goodyear and Sumitomo, to the breaking of the glass ceiling in the hierarchy of the ACS Rubber Division. Here is a synopsis of what happened.
2015 Year in Review: March, April
March
Goodyear agrees to pay $16.2 million to settle allegations of bribery in Kenya and Angola.
CTP Transportation Products L.L.C. changes its name to Carlstar Group L.L.C.
A protracted West Coast ports labor dispute hurts shipments of imported tires.
Problems in the mining market cause Fenner Dunlop P.L.C. to consider changing its focus at a Hull, England, conveyor belt factory.
The Association for Rubber Products Manufacturers forms a committee on seals and gaskets.
GAF Materials Corp. moves its headquarters from one New Jersey location to another.
Cooper Standard Holdings Inc. plans to downsize its Goldsboro, N.C., operations from two plants to one.
Lubrizol Corp. and the Cleveland Clinic join forces to identify and speed development of products for the medical device field.
Kraiburg TPE Corp. breaks ground for a headquarters in Buford, Ga.
Styron L.L.C. officially changes its name to Trinseo S.A.
Norres Schlauchtechnik GmbH launches a project to double its production capacity.
RPN photo by Bruce Meyer
The three owners of Flexan Corp. and FMI Inc., (from left) Bruce Cohen, Scott Severson and Frank Sullivan, pose at the firm's headquarters in Chicago.
Lanxess A.G. announces plans to restructure its EPDM and neodymium-based performance butadiene rubber production, affecting 140 workers worldwide.
Mechanical Rubber Products Co. expects to branch out via its acquisition of Prestige Rubber Manufacturing Corp.
Myers Industries Inc. discloses there may have been fraudulent activities at an operation in Brazil.
Trelleborg A.B.'s Engineered Products divisionexpands a factory in the Netherlands to accommodate the merger of two facilities in that country.
Michelin North America Inc. settles a suit charging Sudduth Tire Co. Ltd., a tire dealer in Southern California, with fraud.
Cooper Tire seeks the dismissal of a shareholders' lawsuit concerning its failed merger with Apollo Tyres Ltd.
Polyurethane systems and recycled rubber goods maker Accella Performance Materials Inc. buys IPS Polymer Systems Inc.
Kent International Inc. obtains a license to sell Goodyear-brand bicycle tires.
Bayer MaterialScience A.G. decides to stop production of diphenylmethane diisocyanate at a facility in Brazil.
Precision Polymer Engineering Ltd. opens a compression molding plant in Brenham, Texas.
Dunlop Oil & Marine invests $26.8 million to open a hose production site in Brazil.
India's Reliance Industries Ltd. and Russia's Sibur plan to set up a butyl rubber facility in India.
ContiTech Rubber Industrial Ltd. boosts capacity to make high-pressure hose by 50 percent at a site in Hungary.
Pirelli CEO Marco Tronchetti Provera.
April
The U.S. Department of Commerce lowers the preliminary antidumping rates against most importers and distributors of Chinese-made passenger and light truck tires, and delays its implementation.
Goodyear opens a development center in China to help service auto makers in the region.
Semperit A.G. Holding buys German rubber seal maker Leeser GmbH & Co. K.G.
China National Chemical Corp. makes a bid to acquire control of Pirelli & C. S.p.A.
Yokohama Tire Corp. plans to source more tires in the U.S. from its domestic operations.
The Iowa Supreme Court rules Doublestar Dongfeng Tyre Co. Ltd. can be sued in the state in a product liability case.
The “Latex Free” label claim may not always be true on some products, warns the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Alliance Tire Group realigns its business along geographical lines.
Federal-Mogul Holdings Corp.'s Powertrain Division prepares to build a sealing and gasket factory in Nanchang, China.
Semperit A.G. plans to invest nearly $16 million to add hose capacity at its facility in Czech Republic.
The Securities and Exchange Commission charges two investors with insider trading in connection with the failed merger of Cooper Tire and Apollo Tyres Ltd.
A worker installs the screen media that Polydeck produces at its S.C. facility.
Apollo Tyres breaks ground on a tire plant in Hungary.
Royal Holdings Inc.'s Kommerling UK Ltd. subsidiary purchases Chemical Innovations Ltd. from the Vita Group.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration moves to make changes in the formats of tire identification numbers.
Polydeck Screen Corp. expands its operations in South Carolina.
Trelleborg Sealing Solutions buys the remaining 50 percent of the shares it does not own of its joint venture in Bulgaria from the Lange family.
Evonik Industries A.G. plans to send $4.4 billion to boost research and development in the next 10 years.
In a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Continental Carbon Co. agrees to spend more than $99 million on pollution controls.
Growing demand prompts PPG Industries Inc. to increase precipitated silica production at its site in Delfzijl, Netherlands.
The Columbian Chemicals (Jining) joint venture plans to build a carbon black factory in China.
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