Earthmover tyre service goes global

KAL Tire of Canada – the world’s largest earthmover tyre dealers – have made a majority equity investment in UK-based OTR Tyres Group that will see the creation of the first truly global earthmover tyre service company.

OTR Group managing director Chris Skelton has described the investment as the ‘most significant global transaction’ in the earthmover tyre service industry to date.

He said the deal represented the culmination of lengthy discussions between OTR and Kal Tire, where the focus had been on how both companies could work together to provide a better service offering to their customers on a global basis.

‘Customers operate across continents and expect world-class standards in service and health and safety wherever they are operating,’ said Mr Skelton. ‘Tyre suppliers have a global product offering, but it has not been possible to have a global service offering alongside this, until now.

‘We have now taken a significant step towards being able to achieve this. If a customer has mines in South America, Africa and Australia, it will be possible to have the same standards of health and safety, tyre service, training, tyre monitoring and reporting across all the mine sites – thus making the attainment of global best practices more achievable.’

Mr Skelton, who will hold a 49% shareholding in the new business, added that there would be a need to champion a single brand across the world so that customers recognize the new company as a single entity, which would mean the re-branding of OTR at some stage. But he said this would be a gradual migration over time, as the OTR brand has a strong identity that the company does not want to lose.

He also confirmed that the current OTR head office in Alfreton, Derbyshire, will continue to operate as an administrative hub for the various OTR businesses.