Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.'s Engineered Products unit may not be the only business that Goodyear is thinking about selling. "Our remaining businesses will be constantly under review," says Goodyear Chairman, CEO and President Bob Keegan. That could include Goodyear's OTR division and its non-North American farm tire unit.
Keegan made the comments during a conference call held earlier today, July 26.
Goodyear expects the sale of Engineered Products to the Carlyle Group will take place during the third quarter of 2007.
When Modern Tire Dealer columnist and tire industry analyst Saul Ludwig asked Keegan about Goodyear's global OTR business and non-North American farm tire business, the CEO said "we like these businesses and their returns, but they're not core (businesses) for us."
However, it appears that Goodyear's consumer and commercial tire businesses are safe. “We continue to see very attractive opportunities available to us in the premium consumer tire market and the truck tire market… we are going to launch new products at a greater pace than even today."
Proceeds from the sale of Engineered Products will be used to reduce debt, shore up pension obligations and other purposes, said Keegan.
Four months ago, Goodyear announced it had agreed to sell all of its Engineered Products business for $1.475 billion.
The unit operates 32 facilities in 12 countries and has approximately 6,500 employees. In 2006, it achieved sales of approximately $1.5 billion.
