NASHVILLE — Bridgestone Bandag Tire Solutions (BBTS) is the new name for Bridgestone/Firestone North America Tire’s (BFNAT) reconfiguration of its medium truck tire business, which sees the formal melding of that group with Bandag.
Bridgestone Corp. bought Bandag, closing the $1 billion deal last June, when the company was renamed Bridgestone Bandag Inc.
BFNAT formally announced the consolidation at its Bizcon dealer meeting, held earlier this week in New York City. Some 1,000 U.S. and Canadian commercial dealers, retreaders and truckstop operators attended the two-day conference.
The new subsidiary of BFNAT will be headed by Saul Soloman as president, and will be headquartered at Bandag’s former Muscatine, Iowa, offices.
The most notable aspect of the consolidation is that BBTS will handle all of the sales, marketing, support and engineering for both new tires and retreading system products (including precure tread rubber).
Singh Alhuwalia will remain in Nashville as president of sales and marketing; those functions will also remain in Nashville.
Retreading equipment engineering and manufacturing will be based in Muscatine.
BBTS also announced that it was reconfiguring its sales regions, moving from four regions covering the U.S. and Canada to eight regions – seven for the U.S. and one for all of Canada.
Read more about the Bizcon meeting in the upcoming May issue of Tire Review. (Courtesy of Tire Review)
