Cooper Tire & Rubber Company has selected six high school seniors to receive scholarships to pursue higher education. The Roy V. Armes Scholarship, in the amount of $5,000, and five Cooper Centennial Scholarships, in the amount of $1,000 each, were awarded.
The Cooper Tire & Rubber Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Cooper Tire & Rubber Company, has established a new scholarship in recognition of soon to retire chairman, chief executive officer and president Roy Armes. The fund is known as the Roy V. Armes scholarship and is designed to assist the children of Cooper employees in the USA who intend to read either business or engineering at an accredited four-year college or university. The first Armes scholarship will be awarded in 2017.
Cooper Tire & Rubber Company has reported second quarter 2016 net income of US$71 million, an 18.3 per cent year-on-year increase on the net income achieved a year ago. Commenting on the tyre maker’s Q2 2016 result, chairman, chief executive officer and president Roy Armes noted that “Cooper closed the first half of 2016 with another outstanding quarter.”
Cooper Tire & Rubber is, says chairman, chief executive officer and president Roy Armes, “off to a strong start in 2016” after reporting a 29.5 per cent increase in operating profit despite net sales being down 2.0 per cent in the first three months of the year. Operating margin rose from 10.6 per cent in Q1 2015 to 14.0 per cent in the quarter to 31 March 2016.
Roy V. Armes, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Cooper Tire & Rubber, has announced his intention to retire on 31 August 2016. According to the company’s succession plan, the Cooper Board of Directors will appoint incumbent chief operating officer Bradley E. Hughes to the roles of president and chief executive officer effective upon Armes’ retirement, and Hughes is also expected to join the Board of Directors at that time. Thomas P. Capo, who is now lead independent director, is expected to become the Board’s non-executive chairman upon Armes’ retirement.
The Board of Directors of Cooper Tire & Rubber Company has named Susan F. Davis a director of the company, effective immediately. Commenting on her appointment, company chairman, CEO and president Roy Armes said Davis’s “specific global expertise” will be “of tremendous value as we continue to pursue Cooper’s strategic plans for worldwide growth.”
It’s now over a year since Cooper Tire & Rubber completed the sale of its share in the Cooper Chengshan (Shandong) Tire Company Ltd joint venture. At the time, company chairman, chief executive and president Roy Armes mentioned that Cooper would “identify and develop alternative sources” for the tyres produced at the Cooper Chengshan plant; he identified a further joint venture as one potential option. The tyre maker reports it has realised this alternative source and has entered into an agreement to purchase a majority of China-based Qingdao Ge Rui Da Rubber Co., Ltd (GRT).
Cooper Tire & Rubber blames the absence of Cooper Chengshan Tire (CCT) from the company’s books for the 15.4 per cent year-on-year drop in sales experienced during the second quarter of 2015. Excluding the impact of CCT, Cooper Tire & Rubber’s second quarter 2015 sales rose five per cent year-on-year as a result of $64 million worth of higher unit volume gained both in the Americas and International business units.
The third annual Cooper Tire & Rubber corporate social responsibility and sustainability report was published today. This year’s document is titled ‘Responsibility the Cooper Way’.
Although the absence of Cooper Chengshan Tire (CCT) was noticeable in Cooper Tire & Rubber’s net sales during the first quarter of 2014, the tyre maker managed to increase operating margin, and excluding the impact of CCT’s divestment, increased operating income in the opening three months of the year.
The Board of Directors at Cooper Tire & Rubber Company has authorised the repurchase of up to US$200 million of the company’s outstanding common stock between now and 31 December 2016. The tyre maker says shares “will be repurchased from time to time, based on market conditions and will be executed through open market purchases, privately negotiated purchases or otherwise.”
The sale of its share in the Cooper Chengshan (Shandong) Tire Company joint venture operation in China helped propel Cooper Tire & Rubber’s net income upwards in 2014 and played a key role in quadrupling it in the final quarter of the year. Net sales were 0.4 per cent lower year-on-year, dragged down by weak performance outside of the Americas and the absence of Cooper Chengshan towards the end of the year. The tyre maker says it aims to maintain its margins in 2015 and expects to exceed industry unit volume growth rates in its largest markets; house brands will be a key contributor to this growth.
In recent weeks and months, Roy Armes has voiced on a number of occasions that Cooper Tire & Rubber still views China as an important part of the company’s future plans, despite its experiences at the Cooper Chengshan Tire (CCT) joint venture factory in 2013. Most recently, the chairman, chief executive officer and president confirmed during a conference call on 4 December that the country “will continue to be an important part of our long-term growth strategy.” But that doesn’t mean Cooper Tire can’t or won’t adjust its activities in China to meet global market conditions. In light of a new round of tariff measures in the US, which came into effect shortly after Cooper Tire sold its 65 per cent share in CCT, the company has shifted some of its production from China to other global locations, and it will continue to do so should conditions favour this strategy.
The board of directors at Cooper Tire & Rubber has elected Ginger M. Jones to the position of vice-president and chief financial officer, effective today. Jones succeeds Brad Hughes, who in July of this year was appointed president of the company’s International Operations.
After delivering investors a net income of exactly no cents per share in the third quarter of 2013, this year Cooper Tire & Rubber exceeded analyst estimates to deliver US$0.77 per share, $0.05 higher than the consensus estimate. In reporting these much stronger third-quarter results, the company pointed out that its financial results from a year earlier were impacted by “a number of unusual circumstances,” including strike action and other issues at the Cooper Chengshan (Shandong) Tire Company Ltd (CCT) joint-venture operation in China, which resulted in lower production and shipments; higher costs and lower volume associated with shipping inefficiencies related to ERP system implementations; and costs related to the then-pending acquisition by Apollo Tyres, a deal that was terminated at the end of the year. “As a result, many of the year-over-year comparisons are not representative of the business under normal conditions.”
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