Cooper Tire Counts Cost of Production Halt

Cooper Tire & Rubber Co has warned that a production halt at its Texarkana, Arkansas, facility on 12 March will affect first-quarter earnings by 5 cents to 7 cents a share, Market watch has reported.

The range of estimates provided by five analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call calls for Cooper to post first-quarter results between a loss of 6 cents a share to earnings of 5 cents a share, which produces a mean estimate of a break-even per-share figure. In the year-earlier period, the company earned 32 cents a share.

Production came to a standstill due to a union dispute, which has recently been tentatively resolved. If the new contract is accepted by the full membership of the local, union members will return to work in Cooper’s Texarkana tyre-making facility on Monday. The Texarkana facility employs about 1,700 workers people and makes about 40,000 tyres a day.