Gates Rubber adversely affected by downturn

ERJ staff report (DS)

London -- Tomkins plc. owner of the Gates Rubber business, said it "expects deteriorating global economic conditions to affect the remainder of the year, and we envisage that 2009 will present further challenges in most of our key end markets."

Gates operates within Tomkins' Industrial and Automotive unit. This unit, said Tomkins, "was negatively impacted by increasingly challenging end markets, mitigated to some extent by our performance improvement initiatives." The company added, "Global automotive original equipment markets weakened, with North American markets declining further and Europe and Asia starting to deteriorate rapidly. Industrial production, which had been strong throughout the first half of 2008, also began to weaken, not only in North America but also across all of the regions in which we operate."

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Press release from Tomkins