American Tire Distributors (ATD) said the changes it announced this week, which included restructuring at its Field Support Center and additional resources for its Tire Pros dealers, will “help the business grow and help our customers succeed.”
On Wednesday, ATD announced that it restructured its Field Support Center. The company also laid off approximately 100 employees and is talking to outside sponsors about how it can achieve steady growth, according to Bloomberg. The company also announced that its Tire Pros network of dealers will have a single point of contact through a retail account manager that will focus on dealers’ businesses in their entirety. The retail account managers will also “be responsible for unlocking all the value of the franchise and make it easier to do business with Tire Pros and ATD,” Tire Pros President Ron Sinclair wrote in a letter to dealers.
“As part of our new operating model, we are designating a single point of contact to manage every aspect of our Tire Pros relationship with you,” Sinclair said in the letter. “This team will have dedicated support from both Tire Pros and ATD in order to provide integrated marketing support and digital tools developed to grow your business. In addition, it’s important to identify and enroll new franchisees to build the program in the months and years to come.”
Sinclair said that in the past, members of the Tire Pros team had responsibility for franchise development in addition to supporting current franchisees.
“As part of our new organizational design, we will have two senior team members focused 100% on franchise development,” Sinclair said. “We are confident this will accelerate the number of new franchisees joining Tire Pros.”
Since news of the restructure and layoffs, the company’s distressed bonds rose, Bloomberg reported. ATD, the largest distributor of tires in North America has struggled to regain its footing after Goodyear and Bridgestone pulled their passenger and light truck product offerings from ATD’s inventory earlier this year to form their own distribution channel.
“American Tire’s bonds trade for about a third of their face value, amid predictions from analysts about a debt exchange or pre-packaged bankruptcy that will saddle investors with deep losses,” Bloomberg reported.
An ATD spokesperson said the company is undergoing an “ongoing transformation led us to initiate a strategic repositioning nearly two years ago that is anchored in new technologies, analytics and digital capabilities. With our focus on becoming the most connected and innovative automotive solutions provider, today, ATD completed an organizational restructuring at our Field Support Center to more closely align our capabilities with our strategy to continue to grow and help our customers succeed. While a number of positions have been impacted at the Field Support Center today, we are investing in many new positions that will drive the capabilities aligned with our strategy.”
A company spokesperson told Tire Review that employee layoffs were limited to the field support center. On Wednesday, ATD President and CEO Stuart Schuette said in a letter to employees that “the decision to reorganize our Field Support Center was not made lightly but it was critical for us to align our capabilities with our strategy.”
“We also know that the industry is going through its largest change in decades as we’ve seen in recent industry announcements,” Schuette said in the letter. “Additionally, we know that to grow, thrive and lead the industry we must continue to meet the evolving needs of our customers with differentiated capabilities.
This article will be updated.
