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The Veldmans and the Tire Rack: A Fortune Priced Only in Parts
The fortune: Peter Veldman founded the Tire Rack in Indianapolis in 1979 with his wife Wilma and his son-in-law Mike Joines, moved its headquarters to South Bend, and built it into the country's dominant mail-order and online tire retailer while keeping it a family company (its business entry is in the Business section). Veldman died on 3 March 2014, aged eighty-seven, the company's founder and chairman emeritus (the trade press, from the company's statement). The family's control was priced once, in part: in 2005, after twenty-six years, Leonard Green & Partners purchased a 49% stake in the company, the Veldman family retaining 51% — the price of the stake was not published in the sources consulted.
Its scale: The whole company was priced once, and the price was never published: Discount Tire's acquisition of the Tire Rack, announced 3 December 2021 and closed 31 December 2021, was for an undisclosed amount, in the joint press release and every account consulted — the largest South Bend company sale of its era, with its figure withheld by both private parties. The company's size at the sale is documented in people rather than dollars: more than 950 team members at 31 October 2021, the headquarters to be maintained in South Bend (joint press release). The Tire Rack has published no revenue figure in the sources consulted; outside estimates of its revenue conflict widely — figures above $400,000,000 attributed to Forbes in aggregator summaries, above $500,000,000 in company-profile aggregators that themselves note their private-company revenues are statistical evaluations — and they are carried here as estimates of that class, not as the company's accounts. The family's published giving follows the same pattern of size without a price: the January 2024 gift of the Veldman family foundations to Notre Dame, establishing the Wilma and Peter Veldman Family Psychology Clinic in South Bend, was announced without a dollar amount.
Sources:
- Joint press release, Discount Tire / Tire Rack, December 2021 — the acquisition, closed 31 December 2021, amount undisclosed; more than 950 team members at 31 October 2021; headquarters maintained in South Bend.
- Tire Rack company record as summarized in its reference profile — the 2005 Leonard Green & Partners purchase of 49%, the family retaining 51%.
- Tire Review, March 2014 — Peter Veldman's death, 3 March 2014, aged 87; the Tire Industry Hall of Fame induction of 2012.
- Notre Dame News, 9 January 2024 — the Veldman family foundations' gift for the Wilma and Peter Veldman Family Psychology Clinic, amount not published.