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INTERVIEW
The View From Rovereto
Italy to an end.
As a result of these two significant changes, the Marangoni Group has had to make a number of important and
Unfortunately, the European truck tyre retreading market is also in continuous decline, a trend that has become even more significant over the last 24
Over the past months, or perhaps even the past year there have been stories coming out of the Trento region that painted a bleak picture for Marangoni. Retreading Business has watched what has been developing there and, in all honesty, the Italian regional press has not been particularly kind to Marangoni. The company appears to be beset with challenges and there must be days when the management at Marangoni must wonder when the troubles will end.
Retreading Business had no wish to multiply those troubles by promoting news of the issues, so we waited and allowed the Group to formulate a response for the retreading sector. We approached Marangoni with some written questions and the response from Massimo de Alessandri is as open and as frank as we could have expected.
Retreading Business: What is the main reason for the problems at Rovereto? Is it simply the cost of labour? Or are there other cost considerations that have driven production expenses higher than the market will bear?
De Alessandri: For the Marangoni Group, Rovereto has several different meanings. Rovereto is the birthplace of the Marangoni family and the place where the Group took its first steps before expanding internationally. Rovereto is home to our first ever production plant. It is the headquarters of Marangoni Meccanica, the Group’s technological treasure. Finally, it is the place where the Marangoni Group has its registered offices, general and strategic management and research and development departments, after moving these from Verona in 2007.
It is important to clarify this point, as in recent months some media reports have been mistaking the Rovereto plant for the entire Marangoni Group. By this we mean to say that the production problems in Rovereto must not be taken to represent the performance of the Group as a whole.
The Rovereto production site is
where Marangoni has historically had its direct retreading operations for truck and
earthmoving tyres, as well as the production of solid tyres for fork lift trucks. At the same Rovereto plant, the Marangoni Group has progressively concentrated its other manufacturing activities, with the aim of sustaining employment and satisfying the market need for continuous increases in productivity and efficiency. Thus, over the last two decades the production of retreads for light transport and 4X4s, and the complementary production of new tyres have been moved to Rovereto. Unfortunately, in recent years, certain events have affected some of the markets the Group operates in, markets above all involving the products manufactured in Rovereto. Worldwide production of fork lift truck tyres has now almost completely moved to southeast Asia, due both to the cost of labour for a particularly labour- intensive product and to the proximity to the source of its main raw material, natural rubber. The aggressiveness of Asian manufacturers of new tyres for passenger cars, light transport and 4X4 vehicles has on one hand annulled the competitiveness of retreading such products, and above all has practically brought domestic production of new car tyres in
painful strategic decisions: closing Marangoni Tyre’s new tyre production plant in Anagni and consequently the portion manufactured at the Rovereto plant; terminating retreading for light transport and 4X4 tyres; completing the delocalisation process concerning the production of solid tyres still being made in Rovereto to the plant in Sri Lanka. In order to minimise the impact on employment resulting from these necessary actions, the Group has decided to transfer the production of compounds from its other Italian plants to Rovereto, investing in the expansion and redevelopment of the mixing plant in Rovereto.
months. The international financial crisis has led on one hand to a general slowdown of the economy and to changes in patterns of consumption, and on the other to a new, more efficient and more
concentrated transport industry, with less goods being carried by a smaller number of companies, which are based outside of Italy. This difficult context has been further worsened by the need for Chinese tyre manufacturers, established and supported by the Chinese government in order to boost employment, to offload a huge quantity of truck tyres, initially introduced onto the North American market, yet now less competitive due to the
Massimo De Allesandri, CEO of the Marangoni Group
14 Retreading Business