The new firm will be responsible for the marketing, sales and distribution of the Cooper and Pneustone brand tires in Mexico, as well as all other associate brand tires marketed by the two partner companies.
Pneustone is the house brand of CorporaciÓn de Occidente, a subsidiary company of Grupo Dexel.
“This is a great opportunity to grow the Cooper brands in Mexico,” said Phil Caris, Cooper vice president of sales and marketing. “By partnering with Occidente, we gain access to retail channels in Mexico and leverage existing relationships that Pneustone brand has established with dealers throughout that country.”
The new JV company will be based in QuerÉtaro, Mexico, and the company will be led by Jim Smith, general director, who was formerly plant controller at Cooper’s Texarkana, Ark., tire plant. The director of marketing will be Chris Barbara, formerly Cooper’s manager of sales training. Hugo Ybarra, with 15 years of experience in the Mexican tire market, will serve as sales director.
In addition, Cooper finalized a production deal with CorporaciÓn de Occidente to produce Cooper branded radial passenger tires at its plant in Guadalajara, Mexico. The three-phase ramp up targets a unit volume of nearly 2.5 million tires per year, which will be sold throughout North America.
