Financial Times

RPC mulls offshore JVs for re-treading tyres
The Richard Pieris Tyre Company Ltd., a unit of the Richard Pieris group, is exploring opportunities to use its expertise and experience in the industry to take up offshore joint ventures for pre-cured retreading of commercial tyres.
This was revealed by Dr Sena Yaddehige, RPC chairman, in his annual report to shareholders for the financial year 2004/05.

The primary area of growth in the company was spearheaded by pre-cured tyres whose volumes increased by 20 percent. The company launched new tyres to the market under the brand name YATA with five tyre sizes. The company plans to re-launch the product with improved technical specifications and an aggressive marketing campaign this year.

The company also launched its latest addition to its product portfolio, “Horizon”- radial remanufactured tyres for the first time in Sri Lanka. “This is a significant technological achievement with the company successfully acquiring patent rights for this state-of-the-art process,” Yaddehige said.

The company has plans of penetrating into overseas markets with the new Horizon tyres. Richard Pieris Tyre Company’s volume of retread tyres processed during the year increased 16 percent while growth in turnover rose 23 percent. Operating profits increased by 96 percent.

Yaddehige said the RPC group achieved a pre-tax profit of Rs. 1.1billion, which enabled it for the first time to exceed the billion rupee mark. In addition, market capitalisation too reached Rs. 10 billion mark from Rs. 5.4 billion displayed in March 2004.

Back to Business