Accuride Corp. announced leadership changes and other restructuring changes, including the creation of an aftermarket division, designed to improve its competitiveness.


John R. Murphy tendered his resignation as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as a Director of Accuride, effective September 22, 2008. Upon acceptance of Murphy's resignation, Accuride's Board of Directors appointed William (Bill) M. Lasky as interim President and Chief Executive Officer.

Lasky has been an independent Director of Accuride since October 2007 and will continue to serve as a Director during his employment as interim President and Chief Executive Officer. He has served as the Chairman of the Board of Stoneridge, Inc., a manufacturer of electronic components, modules and systems for various vehicles, since July 2006 and has been a director of Stoneridge since January 2004. Previously, Lasky served as the Chairman and President and Chief Executive Officer of JLG Industries, Inc., a manufacturer of aerial work platforms, telescopic material handlers and related accessories, from 1999 through late 2006, when JLG Industries was acquired by Oshkosh Truck Corporation. Prior to joining JLG Industries, he served in various senior capacities at Dana Corporation from 1977 to 1999.

A series of strategic restructuring initiatives are designed to reduce expenses, increase competitiveness, strengthen customer relationships, and enhance shareholder value.

As a result of the restructuring initiatives, Accuride will eliminate a total of 392 positions, or 11 percent, of its total workforce, including 159 salaried positions, or 18 percent of current level, and 233 hourly employees, or 9 percent of current level.

"We are extremely mindful of the impact that these difficult but necessary actions have on our employees," said Terrence J. Keating, Chairman of the Board of Accuride. "However, given the current weak build rates and challenging macroeconomic environment, these initial restructuring steps are necessary to allow us to effectively compete in the markets we serve."

In addition to the workforce reduction, the company reiterated that it would continue to pursue initiatives that would reduce overhead costs and improve asset utilization through the redeployment of equipment and rationalization of facilities, while maintaining sufficient capacity to service customer needs during peak build levels.

Accuride confirmed its commitment to the aftermarket today by announcing the creation of a dedicated Aftermarket Division to strengthen its services and offerings to its customer base.

In conjunction with this announcement, Accuride named Tony Pape as Vice President and General Manager of its Aftermarket Division. In addition, Phil Stolz was named Vice President, Truck OE Sales and Corporate Marketing to help ensure continued excellent OE support with an expanded focus on market development.

"We look to Tony and Phil to take a dynamic approach in significantly strengthening our customer relationships by servicing both the aftermarket and OE service in a centralized fashion," said Rick Schomer, Accuride's Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing. "To support these initiatives, we will be consolidating our existing warehouses to reduce freight and product handling costs and significantly improve our customer service offering for full mixed product truckloads to our aftermarket customers."

Overall, order boards within the Class 5-8 markets as well as the trailer market have not yet gained meaningful traction as the freight environment remains weak and trucker profitability remains low following record high fuel prices, the company said in its announcement. Order boards within these markets saw month-over-month decreases in the second and third quarters. With backlogs failing to increase, some OEMs continue to reduce their build plans for the remainder of 2008. Currently OEM reported build rates translate into a North America Class 8 production of approximately 190,000 - 200,000 units for 2008 and Class 5-7 production of approximately 170,000 - 180,000 units.