Continental will take over the Australian Kmart Tyre and Auto Service“ (KTAS) and will strengthen its network of dealers in Australia. The Australian company Wesfarmers Limited is the seller. The purchase price amounts to 350 Australian dollars (about 227 million euros).
“Australia will be a promising sales area for Continental. When purchasing KTAS, we will considerably expand our presence in the Australian tyre market”, explains Nikolai Setzer, member of the Executive Board at Continental AG and Head of the Tyre Division. The acquisition is part of the Growth Strategy Vision 2025, with which Conti will expand the international presence of the tyre area. At the moment, KTAS is represented with 258 subsidiaries, above all in the densely populated areas of the eastern and Southeast coast region of the continent. Headquarters of the company with more than 1200 employees is in Sydney. The core business consists of distribution of passenger car and transporter tyres, tyre service, inspections and maintenance, and several smaller mechanical repairs of brakes, air conditioning and shock absorbers.
“We are pleased with further increasing our commitment to Australia because of taking over this tyre and auto service chain that is extremely popular and well-known on the fifth continent,” explains Ferdinand Hoyos, Head of Passenger and Light Truck Tire Business APAC (Asia Pacific). “We will further develop and expand the already dense network of branches and the product portfolio together with the current management, and the new colleagues from KTAS”, he illustrates the plans. Thus, apart from tyres, auto service and repair business, which the already existing BESTDrive retail network offers, in the future, the international tyre manufacturer will provide services for trade and for fleets as well as digital management systems for commercial vehicle tyres in Australia.
Continental runs four tyre production locations in the Asian-Pacific region. So far, branches of the international retail subsidiary BestDrive have represented the company. Some of the branches even have the Continental logo.
In the framework of Vision 2025 - the Tire Division’s long-term international growth strategy - Continental recently invested in more capacities in tyre plants and in the construction of a new passenger car tyre production plant in Thailand. The construction of its Taraxagum Lab Anklam started in Germany in order to study the rubber production based on the dandelion plant at industrial scale.
(akl/kle)
