Can’t collect yet, Cooper Tire told

Judge rules firm must prove Apollo-buyout terms met

An Apollo Tyres Ltd. employee talks to customers at the company’s Apollo Super Zone store in Mumbai, India, in June.
An Apollo Tyres Ltd. employee talks to customers at the company’s Apollo Super Zone store in Mumbai, India, in June.

Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. isn’t yet entitled to an order that would force Apollo Tyres Ltd. to pay a contractually agreed $35 a share for the company, a judge said in a weekend letter to lawyers.

Cooper must prove it had satisfied all the conditions of the $2.5 billion buyout agreement, and whether it did so remains unresolved in litigation, Delaware Chancery Court Judge Sam Glasscock III wrote in a clarification letter to lawyers dated Saturday.

“Cooper has failed to demonstrate a present entitlement to specific performance,” the judge wrote, referring to the $35-a- share payment.

After a three-day trial and closing arguments, Glasscock issued a preliminary ruling from the bench Friday, rejecting Cooper’s contention that Apollo delayed negotiations with Cooper’s United Steelworkers’ union and breached the agreement by acting in bad faith.

Cooper, based in Findlay, Ohio, sued Gurgaon, India based Apollo after Apollo failed to complete the buyout by an Oct. 4 deadline and suggested the stock might be worth as much as $9 a share less. Apollo shares climbed 4.1 percent to $1.17, the highest level since June 12, in trading Monday in Bombay. Trading volume was almost three times the daily average. Cooper shares rose 50 cents, or 2.1 percent, to close Monday at $24.32.

Cooper Tire operates a manufacturing plant that makes tires for the sport utility vehicle and light-truck markets as well as a retail store in Texarkana. The operations employ about 1,760 and opened in 1964.

Apollo “continues to believe in the merits of the combination and is committed to finding a sensible way forward,” the company said Monday while releasing its fiscal second-quarter results. Apollo’s net income rose to $34.5 million in the quarter ending Sept. 30 from $23.9 million in the year-earlier period, beating analyst estimates of $27.4 million.

Another point of contention, Glasscock wrote, is whether Cooper can comply with a request that it provide third-quarter company financial results by Thursday to satisfy Apollo’s lenders.

Cooper’s China venture, called Cooper Chengshan (Shandong) Tire Co., operates the company’s biggest manufacturing site, according to its union.

Workers there stopped producing Cooper tires July 13 to protest the Apollo deal.

“Cooper is unlikely to be able to provide those financials due to the physical seizure of a Cooper subsidiary in China by a minority partner,” Glasscock wrote.

He said that if financial results are completed on time, Cooper’s request for “specific performance will remain viable.”

Cooper Chengshan, a joint venture between Cooper Tire and China’s Chengshan Group founded in 2006 in the eastern Chinese city of Rongcheng, has more than 5,000 workers and the capacity to produce 15 million tires a year, according to its website.

The judge has said he’d try to release a fuller ruling on issues in the lawsuit within a few days.

Cooper’s options include agreeing to a lower price that would accommodate Apollo. Options for Apollo include paying a $112.5 million “reverse breakup fee” to walk away, according to Cooper’s complaint.

The case is Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. v. Apollo (Mauritius) Holdings Pvt, CA8980, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington).

Information for this article was contributed by John Magsam of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Business, Pages 23 on 11/12/2013

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