By Amy Antenora
The Week in Review offers a snapshot of the most highly read stories of the week as seen on aftermarketNews. To access the complete stories, simply click on the highlighted links. If you missed reading one of our daily news emails, click on any of the dates listed at the bottom of the page to begin catching up on the latest industry news.
Two of the top manufacturers in the aftermarket industry, Affinia Group and Federal-Mogul, released their full-year financial reports for the 2007 fiscal year this week. Both companies reported an increase in their net sales, with Affinia Group at $521 million, and Federal-Mogul with an increase of $588 million. Gross profit for 2007 for Affinia Group increased to $379 million compared to $376 million in 2006, while gross margin for Federal-Mogul’s 2007 fiscal year increased by $80 million.
Along with this news, AMN readers were interested to learn that ROL Manufacturing has filed for creditor protection in Canada under the “Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act” this week. ROL hopes this move will strengthen the company, as it did with the June 2007 acquisition of Corteco’s North American Traditional Aftermarket Business.
Also this week Ford Motor Co. announced it is offering to buy out 81 of its dealers in order to reduce costs and cut down over saturation in the market. Ford has given its dealers a deadline of April 1 to decide, yet many dealers feel frustrated by the short length of time. Last year, Ford cut 340 dealer stores.
Rounding out the most-read news stories this week was a report that India automotive giant, Tata Motors, plans to borrow $1 billion to buy legendary luxury brands, Jaguar and Land Rover. Along with this move, Tata Motors is launching production of the world’s cheapest car, the Nano, which is priced at $2,500, into the Indian Market. With these recent developments, Tata Motors plans to stabilize its financial role and presence in the global automotive marketplace.
* Nicholas DiSabatino, AMN editorial assistant, contributed to this report.
To view all of the news from the past week, simply click on the link for each corresponding day:
