CTNA Acquires Majority Ownership Of ERCO
Published:02-July-2009
By Staff Reporter
The company aims to strengthen presence in Latin America
Continental Tire North America (CTNA) has acquired majority ownership of Compania Ecuatoriana del Caucho S.A. (ERCO), a passenger, light truck and commercial tire company in Latin America.
The acquisition would give CTNA a competitive position in Latin America, through ERCO's distribution network in Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Columbia, Venezuela and Ecuadorm, the company said.
Matthias Schoenberg, CEO, Continental Tire The Americas, said: "Majority ownership of ERCO provides Continental with the ability to improve our entire value chain–from the rubber plantation to the retail stores–throughout the Americas region through ERCO's strong competence in the tire business."
"Our plan is to have ERCO manage the six countries of the Andean region so that we can expand our business in these critical growth markets which, together, have a larger population size than that of Mexico, but with faster growth," he added.
ERCO Group is a vertically integrated tire business in Ecuador and includes a tire plant in Cuenca, as well as associated operations including a rubber plantation, retreading plant, tire import businesses and various retail chains in the Andean region. It sells Continental, General, and Barum brands. The tire plant in Cuenca produces both passenger/light truck tires as well as commercial truck tires.
