26 Nov Marangoni expands its global footprint signing a Joint Venture agreement with the Indian GRP
Mumbai, Tuesday, November 24, 2015. Marangoni S.p.a, World’s Leading Tyre Retreading Company and GRP Ltd, India’s largest and world’s leading rubber recycling company established a joint venture to carry on the business of commercial vehicle tyre retreading in India.
The JV leverages the strengths of the two partners – Marangoni as a retreading systems company and GRP in rubber recycling and understanding of the Indian market – to bring a world class retreading solution to the Indian commercial vehicle fleets that will help them extend the life of their tyres and lower their operational costs. A unique technology that will be seen in India for the first time will be Marangoni’s Ring System – RINGTREAD – the splice-less retread. The RINGTREAD technology delivers more mileage, better grip, it is more reliable and eventually will grant higher savings to the Indian fleets.
In addition to this, the JV will bring environmental benefits to the country in general and the transportation sectors in particular as good quality retreaded tyres are environmentally friendly due to lesser resource utilization.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Massimo De Alessandri – CEO, Marangoni Group said, “The evolution of the Indian market provides Marangoni a great opportunity to expand its global footprint. We have been studying this market for some years now and believe that the time is opportune to propose our retreading system to the country. The expanding road network and the wide acceptance of radials by fast professionalizing fleets gives us the confidence that with GRP, we can establish a solid presence in India.”
Mr. Harsh Gandhi, Executive Director, GRP Ltd added, “Our relationship with Marangoni as a supplier to them is more than a decade old and has been built on principles of mutual trust and respect. From our experience in tyre recycling, we believe that the growing pace of radialization is an opportunity to bring a world class-Retreading concept to Indian fleets. Marangoni was the most qualified partner for this”.
The JV intends to establish a pan-Indian network of tyre retreaders able to spread the quality of the Marangoni system to commercial vehicle fleets. These retreaders will have:
(a) High quality and productivity Marangoni equipment
(b) Tyre retreading process standardized and perfected by Marangoni during many decades of global experience
(c) High quality material for Marangoni retreading sourced from the JV
(d) Professional training in world-class retreading processes and fleet solutions
The JV inaugurated its first flagship store at Indore on November 23, 2015. Indore was chosen as the first location since it is a large trucking centre and the level of radialisation there is >50% – much higher than the national rate of around 36% currently. In subsequent months, the JV expects to attract entrepreneurs looking to invest in the tyre retreading sector, independent retreaders desiring to upgrade their offering and make it future-proof in a fast changing market and GRP’s present suppliers already operating in the disposal of endof-life tyres.