RAMAT-HASHERON, Israel (March 9, 2010) — Alliance Tire & Rubber Co. Ltd. has sold equipment for passenger and truck radial production at its Hadera, Israel, plant to complete the phase-out of these production lines, according to Pelmar Engineering Ltd., which bought the equipment.
Alliance phased out these product lines, Pelmar said, because of “tough competition coming from low cost foreign tire manufacturers and almost non-existence of import duties on tires in Israel.”
The sale of the equipment — tire builders, component processors, curing presses and a uniformity machine — coincides with Alliance announcements of the past year that it was investing in the Hadera factory to upgrade and expand its radial farm and OTR tire capacity.
Alliance was bought in July 2007 by Indian investors with backing from international financiers Warburg-Pincus L.L.C. The new owners built a tire plant in Tirunelveli, India, for lower-value farm and OTR tires, freeing up Hadera to concentrate on radials. The Tirunelveli plant came on stream last year prior to Alliance's purchase of certain worldwide OTR tire-related assets of GPX International Inc.
Ramat-Hasheron-based Pelmar is a leading refurbisher of used tire and rubber processing machinery.