Cooper’s 3Q Report Shows Damage from Apollo Deal, CCT

In the end, Cooper Tire & Rubber Co.’s long awaited third quarter 2013

financial report wasn’t as bad as some may have expected, but there was no doubt about the impact the ill-fated Apollo Tyre deal.

For the quarter, Cooper reported net sales were $832 million, a decrease of $263 million compared with the same period in 2012. And Cooper reported a net loss of $168,000 in the third quarter, compared to a net profit of $74 million for the third quarter of 2012.

For the first nine months of the year, Cooper posted sales of $2.58 billion, down 17.8% from 2012’s $3.14 billion. Operating profit came in at $194 million, down YoY from $273 million.

Digging deeper, Cooper’s P-metric tire shipments were down 16% for 3Q and 14.3% for the first nine months of 2013 vs. 2012. Contrast that to the total industry, which was up 11.9% and 5.7%, respectively. LT-metric was down 9.5% for 3Q and 13.7% for three quarters YoY, while the industry was up 10.5% and 7.0%.

For medium truck tires, Cooper was down 52.5% for 3Q13 (-1.1% for the industry), and 39.1% for the first nine months YoY (-3.2% for the industry).

Cooper had been prevented from making its third quarter report due to unrest and no cooperation from its joint venture partner in China, which took control over the Cooper Chengshan (Shandong) Tire Co. operations. Only recently, after Apollo’s run at acquiring Cooper was halted, did Cooper’s Chinese joint venture partner agree to provide both access to the plant and needed financial data.

“With the merger agreement terminated and operations returning to normal at CCT, we are resuming financial reporting and moving our business forward,” said Cooper chairman, CEO and president Roy Armes. “As expected, issues surrounding the merger had a significant negative impact on our third quarter results, and we anticipate some carry over of these negative impacts to a lesser degree in the near term.”

Cooper will not be holding an earnings conference call with investor analysts, and said it expects to issue its full-year 2013 results sometime in mid-March.

A summary presentation of information related to the quarter, including segment details, is posted on the company’s website at http://coopertire.com/Investors/Financials/Quarterly-Summary.aspx.