When Goodyear faced a hostile takeover in 1986, its stock price hovered around $23 a share.
British financier Sir James Goldsmith attempted a hostile raid on the rubber giant that year — buying up millions of cheap shares in an attempt to take control of the company. In response, Goodyear sold off its non-tire divisions and incurred $2.6 billion in debt to buy out Goldsmith’s shares.
It’s one of the reasons Goodyear, the last of the big rubber companies in Akron and one of the city’s two Fortune 500 companies, is no stranger to hard times. The company, founded in 1898, has weathered world wars and financial crises.
Now, it faces an uncertain future. On Nov. 10, Goodyear’s shares closed at just over $4, a historic low. One day earlier, the company ousted CEO Mark Stewart amid a $238 million third-quarter loss.
Anurag Gupta, a banking and finance professor with Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management, said the company’s financial problems started long before Stewart took the helm in 2024. The company’s single biggest issue is its debt, Gupta said.
“It’s like somebody who has a credit card and he’s having a hard time making the minimum payment every month,” said Gupta, who has watched Goodyear’s finances ebb and flow for decades, helping his students analyze the risks it takes.
David Shaw, chief executive of London-based Tire Industry Research, agreed with Gupta that Goodyear had been “steadily going downhill for many years.” Both analysts looked not to its most recent CEO but to his predecessor, Richard Kramer, for helping steer the company on its current path.
Goodyear declined to comment. Kramer did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Goodyear acquired competitors — Dunlop in 1999 under CEO Sam Gibara and Cooper Tire in 2021 under Kramer — and while it gained customers from those deals and solidified an empire of tire and rubber products, it also took on debt.
Now, Goodyear’s debt is at more than $7 billion. Its market value is only a fraction of that, at about $1.2 billion.
Goodyear cited tariffs, inflation and high manufacturing costs in a news release announcing Stewart’s ousting, but Shaw disagreed with that reasoning — competitors such as Michelin and Pirelli are making decent margins.
“It’s something about Goodyear,” Shaw said. “It’s not the immediate past, it’s not the last one or two years — this has been an ongoing story for at least 20 years under Rich Kramer and his predecessors. And I’m afraid it’s just the same old story of a long, slow decline, limited investment, [and] very short-term planning. … They weren’t looking ahead and the whole business has been changing around them and they’ve not really been responding.”
Now, the response is to place a new interim CEO in charge. But what that means for the future is yet to be seen.
Gupta warned bankruptcy could be in the company’s future.
Shaw said it could ask its debtors to forgive loans and free up some financial flexibility. The company could be sold, too, but any buyer would have to invest funds to pay off debts and upgrade its factories.
“I’m absolutely not saying Goodyear’s dead yet,” Shaw said. “There’s years of life left, but it’s not going to be a happy life. I would not want anyone to interpret that they’re going to close tomorrow, but I think people need to look at what the future’s going to be for that company.
“In my view, it’s on its knees.”
Demand decreases while interest rates rise
Stagnant revenues and external pressures such as higher fuel prices and increased raw material costs have exacerbated what was an internal distress.
Gupta looked to Boeing, Diebold Nixdorf and 3M for the same tale again and again: CEOs purchase competitors or expand companies and the interest on loan payments pressures them into troubling financial situations.
He questioned how Goodyear can compete when demand -– and, by extension, revenue — decreases and its interest rates rise.
“It’s not an isolated example. This has been happening for a long period of time,” Gupta said. “Goodyear is just one more example of a company where this has happened. … In high tide, everyone is peacefully swimming. It is in low tide where you see who is where.”
Goodyear is ‘a severely distressed firm’
Gupta analyzed the company’s finances and found that its current equity value is less than half of what it was in 2010. Tire sales have remained largely flat, he said, and its costs have increased.
“This is a severely distressed firm now,” he said, noting much of its debt comes due over the next three years.
Shaw said Goodyear’s decision to buy its Findlay-based competitor, Cooper Tire, in 2021 limited its financial flexibility. At the same time, industry power moved from the tire manufacturers to the retail chains.
Historically, manufacturers such as Goodyear dictated what products they supplied retailers at what price. Now, those same retailers can buy products from China or private brands that compete with the U.S. manufacturers.
The cost to manufacture tires in the U.S. has also increased, Shaw said, in part because of union labor costs and demands.
“I like unions, I’ve benefited from union activity,” Shaw said. “However, I think in the U.S. the unionized plants, tire plants, are extremely expensive … Pirelli’s just announced $1 billion worth of investment, Continental is adding a factory, [Giti Tire,] Hankook are all adding capacity, but they tend to be nonunionized plants. All the unionized plants are closing.
“Now, it’s not the fault of the unions entirely,” he continued. “It’s largely the fault of management. But that is the reality in the U.S. at the moment. The cost of making tires is just too high.”
Requests for comment from United Steelworkers Local 2L were not returned by deadline.
The same cost-cutting measures once moved industrial plants from the Midwest to the southern U.S. and later shifted production to Mexico and now to Thailand and Vietnam — all in search of the cheapest labor.
It is something Lakisha Barclay, executive director and CEO of the American Chemical Society’s Rubber Division, has seen time and again.
The shift in Akron started in the 1970s and ‘80s, she said. Many residents can trace their roots to their grandparents working in the city’s rubber industry, but that overlapping legacy moved manufacturing to Alabama and Louisiana, where wages were cheaper.
Suggested Reading
She has watched it happen in various industries across the globe — call centers start in India and shift to smaller Southeast Asian countries with lower wages. The same happens in manufacturing, she added.
While tires made in overseas factories are subject to increased shipping costs and tariffs or import fees, Shaw, from Tire Industry Research, said they can still be sold for a fraction of the cost of the same products made in the U.S.
Goodyear has suffered for it, he said.
Coupled with leaders who have lacked a background in the industry, he said it has been “loss after loss.”
Akron, Goodyear’s success are inseparable
Stewart, the former Stellantis chief operating officer of North America, was hired to turn around the Akron tire giant’s fortunes under “Goodyear Forward,” a transformation plan to keep the company sustainable. His tenure included layoffs, overtime reductions and asset sales to boost profits. Still, Stewart missed planned targets.
Roger Wood, a member of the company’s board of directors, succeeds Stewart in the interim, but Goodyear will look for a new leader to head its global workforce.
The company has fewer than 2,600 Akron employees, with a global workforce of about 64,500 as of June 2026, according to Revelio Labs.
Steve Millard, president and CEO of the Greater Akron Chamber, said the company is doing what it believes it needs to do internally to remain successful — and that success is important to the region’s continued economic health.
“Goodyear is one of Greater Akron’s most important employers and a cornerstone of our community,” Millard said in a statement. “Its headquarters here, and its deep engagement in the business and civic work to invest in and grow our region matter enormously to us. … The Chamber stands ready to support Goodyear through this transition, because the company’s long-term success and our region’s long-term success are inseparable.”
Goodyear is an anchor in Akron, Barclay said, and whether the company promotes someone from within or brings in an individual from the outside will set the tone for its next chapter.
“With Goodyear being one of the big three, any changes that they make will have a ripple effect across the supply chain,” she said.
Suggested Reading
If Goodyear shifts its focus to tires for electric vehicles — which must be able to handle the weight of the cars’ large batteries — or if it increases production of low-end or high-end tires, where it gets its supplies will shift.
Its priorities may also change. Will it keep its sustainability pledge for a more natural tire by 2030? Will it invest in domestic, farming or large vehicle tires versus racing or standard car options?
Michelin, Bridgestone and Goodyear are always watching one another, Barclay said. Just like Barclay and others, they will have to wait to see what is next.
“I have faith that Goodyear’s committed to staying in the U.S. for their headquarters and staying in the Akron area for their headquarters. I think they made that commitment … Above all, we will hurry up and wait and be patiently watching.”
