Shares of Findlay, Ohio-based Cooper Tire & Rubber (CTB) dropped 0.7% in Thursday trading, following a second-quarter earnings report that showed the company missing badly on both revenues and earnings.
Cooper reported earning $0.55 per share on $884 million in revenues. This represented declines of 33%, and 16%, respectively, in comparison to results from the year-ago quarter. Analysts following Cooper had predicted the company would earn $0.93 per share on $973 million in revenues.
Ordinarily, an earnings miss of this magnitude would probably have resulted in a more drastic reaction from investors. However, the fact that Cooper is in the process of selling itself to a subsidiary of India's Apollo Tyres, Ltd., makes the company's results as a stand-alone entity less relevant to investors today. Assuming Cooper's results do not scare off Apollo from proceeding with its buyout, at least, investors can probably trust to the buyout's $2.5 billion price tag to prevent too much erosion from the company's current $2.1 billion market cap.
