Cooper Tire to Reopen U.S. and Serbia Manufacturing Plants; Mexico Facility to Return to Temporary Shutdown

Cooper Tire & Rubber Company (NYSE: CTB) today announced that its manufacturing plants in the United States and Serbia will begin the process of reopening and ramping up production next week. The facilities have been temporarily closed for approximately five weeks due to coronavirus and its impacts.

U.S. plant locations include Findlay, Ohio; Clarksdale and Tupelo, Mississippi and Texarkana, Arkansas. Cooper’s plant in Serbia is located in Kruševac. The company’s plant in Melksham, England remains temporarily closed.

To help safeguard the health and safety of employees, the company has put in place a comprehensive set of return to work procedures that include required employee disclosures, increased cleaning and disinfecting of equipment, social distancing and physical barriers, visitor restrictions, and other measures. Similar procedures have been effective at Cooper’s two plants in China, which reopened and began ramping up production in mid-February.

The company also announced that the federal government in Mexico has now determined that Cooper’s manufacturing plant there is a non-essential business, and is requiring Cooper to temporarily close the plant beginning April 28. Cooper had successfully reopened its Mexico plant April 13 after it had been temporarily closed due to coronavirus and its impacts. The company will continue to monitor the situation and prepare to reopen as soon as appropriate.

Cooper’s distribution centers around the globe continue to operate and flow product to customers.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains what the company believes are “forward-looking statements,” as that term is defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, regarding projections, expectations or matters the company anticipates may happen with respect to the future performance of the industries in which it operates, the economies of the U.S. and other countries, or the performance of the company itself, which involve uncertainty and risk. Such forward-looking statements are generally, though not always, preceded by words such as “anticipates,” “expects,” “will,” “should,” “believes,” “projects,” “intends,” “plans,” “estimates,” and similar terms that connote a view to the future and are not merely recitations of historical fact. Such statements are made solely on the basis of the company’s current views and perceptions of future events, and there can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be true.