Iranian tire cord company buys local tiremaker

Tehran – Iran’s TireCord Co. has acquired local Pars Tire Co., in a deal that is worth IRR900 billion (€19 million), ERJ has learnt.

Pars Tire, which has been seeking investors in the past two years, has a nameplate capacity of 40,000 tonnes of bias truck and bus tires per year.

However, demand for these products is declining in both domestic and international markets.

“Bias tires were not doing too well for a long time, but over the past seven-to-eight months they have picked up, thanks to a ban on Chinese imports,” a source close to the deal told ERJ.

The tiremaker has also benefited recently from a sharp decline in the value of Iranian currency, which has made local products more competitively-priced, the source added.

Pars Tire’s manufacturing plant is based in Saveh, 100km outside Tehran, and produces the Pirouzi brand.

TireCord, which started operation in the western Kermanshah Province in 2011, is headed by Iranian entrepreneur Mitra Farzadnia, who is also lead investor in a planned greenfield tire plant in the same province.

Zagros Tire Co. is part of the four greenfield tire plants projects being pursued by Iran’s Industrial Development and Renovation Organisation (IDRO) since 2016.

The 55,000-tonne project will see a €260-million investment from the private sector with extra financing of €130-million provided by Iran’s Industries and Mines Bank.

According to the ERJ source, Farzadnia’s acquisition of Pars Tire is a bid to prepare for the Zagros tire project, which has stalled due to the reimposition of international sanctions on the Islamic Republic.