Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 20, 1995 TAG: 9504210054
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
White Tire, a 23-year-old company that specializes in the sales, servicing and retreading of truck tires, bought McDowell on March 1 for an undisclosed sum, President David White said.
He said the company's sales will reach $35 million this year, after McDowell's 1994 sales of $8 million are added to White Tire's 1994 sales of $27 million.
That new figure will rank the company among the 20 largest commercial tire distributors doing business in the United States, based on sales and calculated by Akron, Ohio-based Tire Business, a trade magazine.
The reason for the acquisition was simple, White said. McDowell enables White Tire to buy supplies at greater bulk discounts and realize other economies of scale. That, in turn, "lets you be more profitable," he said.
White Tire has retail, service and retreading business in Roanoke as well as operations in Kingsport and Knoxville, Tenn.; Charleston, W.Va.; and Greenville, S.C.
McDowell expands the company's market by adding more retail, service and retreading operations in Nashville, which White said is a thriving commercial tire market because it is at the junction of Interstates 65, 24 and 40.
McDowell's retread site will boost the number of such operations in White Tire to five and raise the company's total output to 500 to 600 tires daily, White said. That will earn the company a spot on Tire Business's top-20 list for retreaders, White said.
McDowell also services off-road heavy equipment, something White Tire has not done.
White said the company is looking for further acquisitions in eastern Virginia and Maryland.
The 200-employee company began as a small car-tire shop after moving to Roanoke from Tazewell in 1972. White said he moved the company to improve his quality of life.
He expanded to three other states when he realized he could not realize his goals on the level of commercial trucking solely in the Roanoke area.
by CNB