Rating Agency Reviews Cooper’s Debt Rating

Moody’s Investors Service is reviewing and may downgrade the debt rating for Findlay’s Cooper Tire & Rubber Co, the rating agency has said. Cooper Tire officials told Moody’s they expect to use $100 million to $200 million of proceeds from the nearly $1.2 billion sale of Cooper-Standard to reduce debt, the agency said. Other proceeds will be used for a “significant amount of stock repurchases.” However, the $100 million to $200 million amount would not lower debt enough, and repurchasing shares would increase financial risk, according to Moody’s.