United States Rubber Company - Michelin Group

Michelin Group

By May 1990, Michelin Group completed its purchase of Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Company from Clayton & Dubilier of New York. The deal was valued at about US$1.5 billion. B.F. Goodrich surrendered its 7% warrant to Michelin Group for US$32.5 million.

With the sale, B.F. Goodrich then exited the tire business and became the Goodrich Corporation to focus on building its chemicals and aerospace businesses through reinvestment and acquisitions. Michelin Group continued to operate the Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Company as its tire manufacturing unit in the United States and Canada.

In January 1991, Michelin Group closed the historic Eau Claire, Wisconsin plant, eliminating 1,350 positions. Later in 1991 it closed the tire-cord manufacturing plant in Lindsay, Ontario with 74 workers on August 30, 1991 due to high cost and two tire factories with 1,000 jobs in Kitchener, Ontario citing overcapacity.

Also in 1991, the Uniroyal tiger returned to national television after a 10-year hiatus, featured in a new 30-second spot created by Wyse Advertising of Cleveland, Ohio. The animated Uniroyal tiger had been a television advertising icon for the company through the 1970s. The new commercial appeared on ESPN and CNN sports-related programming, and also was run by Uniroyal dealers in local markets.

By 1993, Michelin North America employed 28,000 people at 18 plants, in South Carolina, Alabama, Oklahoma, Indiana, Nova Scotia and Ontario. In mid-1993 Michelin North America cut 2,500 of those jobs, which represented about 9% of its work force in the United States and Canada, because of softening demand for tires. As of 2010, the Uniroyal Goodrich Tire unit continued to operate with about 1,000 workers at its tire plant in Woodburn, Indiana and another plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Citing overcapacity in the North American tire market, the plant in Opelika, Alabama closed in 2009.