Cooper shareholders will vote on $2.4B deal

8/31/2013

FINDLAY — Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. has scheduled a special meeting of its shareholders for Sept. 30 to vote on a proposed $2.4 billion acquisition by Apollo Tyres Ltd., of Gurgaon, India.

The vote will be open to Cooper Tire shareholders of record as of Aug. 30. The meeting will be held at 10 a.m. in the law offices of Jones Day, 901 Lakeside Ave., North Point, in Cleveland. If approved, Cooper Tire shareholders will receive $35 a share for their stock.

When the acquisition was announced June 12, Cooper Tire shares were at $24 on the New York Stock Exchange but ever since they have traded above $30 a share and closed at $31.93 on Friday, up almost 3 percent.

The approval by Cooper Tire shareholders is the last obstacle preventing the deal from being completed. In early August the all-cash deal was approved by the U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission.

The corporate boards of Apollo Tyres, one of India's biggest tire companies, and Findlay-based Cooper Tire, the fourth-largest tire maker in the United States, already have approved the deal. If the acquisition is finalized by year's end, the combined firms would be the fourth-largest tire manufacturer in the world.