Rubber Co

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plans to raise prices on consumer replacement tires in North America up to 6% to recover higher raw materials costs. Goodyear, which has forecast a fourth-quarter operating loss for its North American Tire unit, said the increases would take effect Dec. 1. The increases cover all consumer tire brands and will be Goodyear's first in about a year, a spokesman said.

Performance Processing Co. in Orange sold its silicone rubber custom-compounding assets to a unit of GE Silicones for an undisclosed price, the Waterford, N.Y., firm said Monday. GE said in a press release that the acquisition from Performance, a division of West American Rubber Co., will enhance its West Coast customer base. GE, a global manufacturer of silicone products, is a $1.4-billion operating division of GE Plastics.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. said it would scrap its pension program for current workers and raise retiree healthcare payments to save as much as $90 million annually. In 2009, Goodyear will replace defined-benefit pension plans with 401(k) programs with matching contributions. Corporate salaried and retail store retirees will pay more for health benefits beginning next year, and some insurance benefits will be canceled, Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear said.

Adolph L. Antonio, 80, an aerospace executive who headed the solid rocket propulsion division of Aerojet General in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1954, he left Southern California to take over the chemical division of General Tire & Rubber Co., Aerojet's parent company, in Akron, Ohio, returning as general manager of Aerojet's Space General Corp. In Arcadia on Wednesday of cancer.

Sudbury Holdings Inc. said that Western Capital Corp., its 80% owned subsidiary, has acquired the assets and business of the Michigan division of Midwest Rubber Co. A fixed portion of the purchase price will be paid in cash and a note at the closing. If future earnings exceed certain base levels, an additional amount is to be paid in cash, Sudbury said. Midwest is a manufacturer of rubber and plastic products primarily for the automotive industry.

Elizabeth Parke Firestone, 93, widow of industrialist Harvey S. Firestone Jr. Mrs. Firestone, a collector of precious objects, traveled extensively in Southeast Asia and Africa to study rubber production with her husband, the former director, chairman and chief executive officer of Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., who died in 1973. His father, Harvey Sr., founded the tire manufacturing firm in 1900. In Newport, R.I., on Saturday.