French tyre producer, Michelin, is expanding its footprint in the South East Asia market by acquiring majority stakes in the Indonesia tyre brand PT Multistrada Arah Sarana Tbk.

Michelin has agreed to pay $439 million for 80% of MASA’s equity through internal accruals. The announcement further mentions Michelin would hold a tender offer to buy all remaining MASA shares at the same price with the purchase price of 80% of the shares, in accordance with the rules of the Indonesian capital market.

Jean-Dominique Senard, Chief Executive Officer of the Michelin Group in a statement said, “The acquisition of Multistrada is an opportunity for Michelin to expand operations in the most populous Southeast Asian country – Indonesia, and directly gain competitive and quality production capacity without creating new sites.”

Multistrada has production capacity of more than 180,000 tons of tyres. Leveraging its technical expertise, Michelin gradually switches to manufacturing of tier 3 passenger car tyres to the Michelin Group tier 2 brand to enable more tier 1 production in other Asian sites and support the growth of tier 2 volume demand in Europe, North America and Asia.

Pieter Tanuri, CEO, Multistrada believes, “Michelin is the ideal partner to bring Multistrada to the era of growth and success for the benefit of stakeholders and employees.”

In addition to the acquisition of 80% of MASA’s shares, Michelin will acquire 20% of the shares of retail firm PT Penta Artha Impressi to handle marketing and sales of Michelin Group brands in Indonesia.