Goodyear Offers Senior Notes

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (GT - Analyst Report) announced the public offering of $750 million senior unsecured notes of 8 years. With an increase of $150 million over this amount, the company subsequently declared the pricing of $900 million of 6.5% senior unsecured notes of 8 years.

The offering will be made under a shelf registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Goldman Sachs & Co. (GS - Analyst Report), Barclays Capital Inc., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Credit Agricole Securities (USA) Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC will act as the joint book-running managers for the offering.

The proceeds from this offering will be utilized for funding discretionary contributions to the frozen U.S. pension plans as well as for general corporate purposes.

Goodyear is one of the largest tire manufacturing companies worldwide, selling its products under the Goodyear, Kelly, Dunlop, Fulda, Debica, Sava and various other “house” brand names as well as private-label brands. The company currently retains a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

Goodyear reported a profit of $97 million or 39 cents per share in the fourth quarter of 2012 that significantly rose from $6 million or 3 cents in the same quarter of 2011 (all excluding special items).With this, the company has beaten the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 21 cents per share.

Revenues dipped 11.2% to $5.0 billion, owing to $338 million in lower tire unit volumes, $221 million in lower sales in other tire-related businesses, mainly third-party chemical sales in North America, and $85 million in unfavorable foreign currency translation. It was lower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $5.4 billion.

Few stocks that are performing well in the industry where Goodyear operates are Continental AG (CTTAY), Oshkosh Corporation (OSK - Snapshot Report) and Strattec Security (STRT - Snapshot Report). Each of them carry a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).