CTB
#First of all, <UNK>, that's exactly what we're doing.
We're moving it there primarily for import into the US, and we can do that competitively coming from Serbia.
Having said that, there were also some products that we had been building in China for the European market.
And we're ---+ we'll be doing most of that work out of Serbia as well.
Timing wise, that's going to will be into the second, third quarter.
We should have that transition done maybe a little bit sooner.
That's in process as we speak.
<UNK>, do you have anything else.
It's moving product versus moving equipment.
Or mold.
Yes.
Thanks.
Good morning, <UNK>t.
Well, I think first of all, you know, I don't know that the rest of the year is typical in our business for the last several years.
And yes, you're right, in the second half you would normally see some margin improvement because it's a season high, if you would.
So having said that, though, <UNK>t, I think the question really is what's going to happen with raw materials is one.
And what's going to happen with these tariffs.
What do we have to do to respond to that.
And that's really the questions in our mind.
That's why we're feeling confident saying, hey, we're guiding to the high side, but I don't think we're assuming that everything is going to be exactly the same as it is in the first quarter.
Having said that, if you assume everything is going to remain the same as it is in the first quarter with the rest of the year, yes, I think you have a good point and a good argument there.
We're not going to ---+ at this point in time, we're not predicting it's going to happen that way.
There's too much volatility that we potentially could see that's out there.
If it doesn't happen, I think we're going to be in very good shape.
With the tariffs, obviously that impacts the pricing.
The other thing I would add here that might be unique here, <UNK>t, would be the ---+ our additional cost that we're carrying in China to be able to support some acquisition or some investment in China or in Asia to continue our growth plans there.
That's something that probably will be a little more unique this year versus what you have seen in the past.
I would hope at this point in time, <UNK>t, that we could ---+ we would have a decision on our direction this year, 2015.
As I mentioned before, it could carry into 2016.
But the one thing that we want to be cautious of here is that we are being a little cautious going into this to make sure that we have done the proper due diligence and assessing the risk appropriately.
What we're finding is we have a lot more companies that want to work with us and do business with us versus we've got to go through that and do the right selection.
It just takes a little time for that.
Our plan right now is to try to get it to a decision yet this year.
Yes.
We've not given any guidance on how we expect to do that.
You can see from what we announced today that we've done $35 million through today.
And we'll continue to make that decision based on market conditions.
Alright, <UNK>t.
Thanks.
Hey, <UNK>.
I think there could be some opportunistic buying out there, but we certainly aren't expecting it to be like last year because of the time frame.
We are monitoring that and making sure that we're on top of anything going on in the market that would have an impact on our business.
That's our current anticipation anyway.
Not a lot.
Those have been pretty effective for us.
When you think about the ESPN halftime show in the fall here on NCAA Football, and those types of things that we're involved with, the PBR, which is ongoing for the year, the Arsenal investment that we renewed this year has been popular for us.
The Canadian Hockey League, to build our brand, we've done a really good job of building our brand in Canada and getting some traction there.
So we're going to continue with those until we see something shift there, <UNK>t.
But those have been fairly successful for us.
I would say this without getting into the specific numbers, because I don't think we have shared that in the past.
Right now our inventories in the Americas, we're slightly below where we would like to be right now.
So we're going to ---+ that's ---+ we're going to continue our manufacturing as we make this reconfiguration to continue to get to the levels we think it's going to take to support a very good fill rate in the third and fourth quarter.
We're a little bit behind where we would like to be right now.
I would like to thank everybody for being on the call today.
I would like to reiterate that I'm confident in the worldwide growth strategy that we have in plan and the management team in place to direct that growth.
You have heard a lot today on our comments and how we're doing in the business.
I think our strong balance sheet enables us to meet all of our obligations as well as support the growth that we're pursuing, and it also allows us to continue to return cash to the shareholders.
We're focused on implementing our growth strategies across the world while reaching our target operating margin range of 8% to 10%.
As we've mentioned earlier, we feel all things remaining equal in this first quarter, we certainly should be at the high end of that range.
We appreciate the interest that you have in Cooper Tire and look forward to seeing many of you in person.
If there are follow up questions or needs there, you can get a hold of <UNK>tine <UNK> to continue to answer the questions that you might have as you sort through your models and analyses.
So with that, thank you very much.
