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Goodyear Signs Agreement to Purchase Ultima Plant

12 August 1997

Goodyear Signs Agreement to Purchase Ultima Plant

    AKRON, Ohio, Aug. 12 -- The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
and Robbins, Inc., announced today that an agreement has been signed under
which a Goodyear subsidiary will purchase Robbins' Ultima Rubber Products
plant in Social Circle, Ga.  Terms of the agreement are not being disclosed.
    "This acquisition is another step in our focus on retreading as part of
our core businesses and fits with our chairman's objectives of being No. 1 or
No. 2 in all of our core businesses," said Eugene R. Culler, executive vice
president for North America Tire.  "The acquisition supports Goodyear's
strategy to grow sales of our retread products and our plans to fully
integrate our commercial systems strategy by managing wheel positions from
original equipment through replacement through retreading to energy-producing
disposal."
    The 147,000-square-foot Ultima plant, located on a 24-acre site 40 miles
east of Atlanta, will significantly increase Goodyear's production of precure
rubber for retreading.
    "We have grown faster than the retreading industry as a whole in recent
years resulting in the need for increased retread rubber capacity in order to
support both our existing and future retreading customers," Culler said.
"Ultima's operations have been well managed, possess modern equipment and
produce high quality products that will make integration into Goodyear's
retread manufacturing system very smooth.
   "We welcome the Ultima customers and workforce to the Goodyear family, and
look forward to working with them in the future to continue to build our
businesses," Culler said.  "Ultima will provide considerable upside capacity
which we will utilize to meet our increased demand from the Goodyear
authorized retreaders."

SOURCE  Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company