Nokian Tire, Hankook Consider Buying Multistrada Stakes

European tire producer Nokian Tire Plc and Hankook Tire of South Korea are interested to buy majority shares of domestic tire PT Multistrada Arah Sarana Tbk.

“Negotiation has been started recently, however the controlling shareholder of Multistrada has asked Nokian and Hankook to raise their offered price,” an unnamed investment bank executive quoted by Bisnis Indonesia as saying.

Multistrada’s among well-known tire brands are Corsa and Strada. Multistrada is planning to boost its production capacity, utilsing the loan worth US$200 million that was arranged by CIMB Niaga and HSBC. Rating agency Pefindo projects Multistrada’s sales to rise to Rp 1.69 trillion in 2009, up from Rp 1.33 trillion in previous year, with net profit is also projected to surge to Rp 165 billion from tiny Rp2.97 billion in previous year

Hankook is the seventh largest tire producer in the world that produces tire for passenger car, light trucks, trucks and buses. Around 70% of its products are sold to around 180 countries. In 2009, Nokian posted net profit of 798.5 million euro. (Roffie Kurniawan)

READ MORE!!!