Latin America key to ATG's growth plans

By Stephen Downer, Special to Tire Business

MEXICO CITY — When Nitin Mantri was appointed CEO of Alliance Tire Group (ATG) in spring 2017, having joined the Mumbai, India-headquartered company as CEO designate in February, ATG's public relations team quoted him as saying that “our ambition is to become a $1 billion company by 2020.”

It's clear Latin America will play an important part in the off-highway tire maker's growth plans. “We want to concentrate on Latin America. This is why we created the Latin America (unit),” Mr. Mantri said during a mid-September visit to Mexico.

Having earned most of its income in Europe — particularly in Germany, the U.K., Spain, Italy and France — and in the United States previously, ATG is seeking to bolster not only its share of the Latin American market, including Mexico, but also of emerging markets in Asia and elsewhere.

“In Latin America, we are growing significantly — faster even than the market,” Mr. Mantri told Tire Business in an exclusive interview. “Mexico is doing well,” he said. So were ATG operations in Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Chile.

“Right now,” he said, “we have good tires, good marketing, good leadership and a really good sales team in the field.”

Fernando Ramirez is ATG's sales manager for Mexico and Central America.

In an interview with Tire Business in March, Dhaval Nanavati, ATG's president for Latin America, said the company had no more than a 2-3 percent share of the Latin American market and was barely “scratching the surface.”

The company planned to employ about 10 staffers in the region in 2017, in areas such as sales and technical services, he said. Previously, ATG's head office dealt with orders from Latin America directly. “What we're doing now is having boots on the ground.”

The company could employ as many as 20 in the region in the next three years, Mr. Nanavati added.

Mr. Mantri, who said he prefers to be known simply as the CEO of Alliance Tires, succeeded Yogesh Mahansaria, ATG's founder and CEO, after Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd. acquired the whole of ATG in 2016.

Asked about the reason for his visit to Mexico, Mr. Mantri said: “I'm here mainly to see customers. Part of our strategy is to be very close to customers as this helps us to understand the market.”

The tire maker has about 45 customers in Latin America. All of them are large companies able to import tires, keep a large stock and distribute.

“We are growing well, but we are working on a market study,” Mr. Mantri said. “In six months more, we will have a better idea of the market's potential.”

Mr. Nanavati, who also sat in on the interview with Mr. Ramirez in Mexico City, noted: “We're trying to work out our strategy to understand where we can be in 2020.”

Historically, he said, ATG has done well in Mexico's agriculture sector. “Port and material handling is where we still need to do some work for our future growth.”

According to Mr Mantri, who, joined ATG from Cummins Inc., Columbus, Indiana, “in most of the regions that we are selling our products into, we are growing faster than the market.”

The company, he said, is doing “fabulously well” and should end 2017 with sales in excess of $600 million — a 10- to 15-percent increase over 2016.

Stephen Downer is a Mexico-based freelance writer who covers that country and Latin America for Tire Business and its Latin America e-newsletter.