WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (July 6, 2015) — McCarthy Tire Service will close its Somerset, Pa., OTR tire retreading plant in this summer and will source its OTR retreads from RDH Tire & Retread Co. and B.R. Retreading Inc.
McCarthy cited the costs of operating a “highly capital-intensive process” for its decision, which coincides with its pending acquisition of Ragan Tire Group's OTR tire distribution assets throughout the Southeast.
That acquisition, announced June 23, excludes Concord, N.C.-based RDH Tire and RDH's share of B.R. Retreading, the sixth and fourth largest OTR retreaders in North America, respectively, according to Tire Business' annual rankings of retreaders.
In a prepared statement, McCarthy Tire President John D. McCarthy Jr. said an OTR retread plant needs new equipment every three to four years to stay competitive in the marketplace.
Wilkes-Barre-based McCarthy Tire instead is focusing its energies on the service side of its core OTR and commercial businesses in order to increase customers' uptime and production capacity, Mr. McCarthy added.
McCarthy Tire bought the Somerset plant in 2007 from Walters Tire Service Inc., its longtime OTR tire retread supplier.
The plant was rated at about 40 tires a day, or 2.7 million pounds of tread rubber, making it the eighth largest OTR retread plant in North America.
McCarthy notified the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry June 17 of its intention to close the plant, which employs 38.
McCarthy Tire is considered the sixth largest commercial tire dealership in the U.S. with 2014 sales of $250 million. The company thus far has not said what its recent acquisitions represent in sales revenue.
