FINDLAY, Ohio - Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. is planning to take full ownership of Corporacion de Occidente S.A. de C.V. (COOCSA), its Tire manufacturing joint venture in Mexico by buying the Mexican partner's 42 percent stake.

Cooper and Trabajadores Democraticos de Occidente S.C. de R.L. de C.V. (TRADOC) set up the joint venture in El Salto near Guadalajara in 2008.

A majority of TRADOC members have voted in favor of the agreement to sell their shares, Cooper said.

Brad Hughes, Cooper Tire CEO and president, said in a statement that acquiring full ownership of COOCSA "is an important step in our strategic plan to optimize our global manufacturing footprint with cost-competitive production of quality tires to meet market demand, in this case throughout Latin America, as well as in North America".

Pending government approval and other customary closing conditions, it is expected that the transaction will close in early 2020. Financial terms are not being disclosed.

In the meantime, operations at the facility, which makes passenger car and light truck tires, will continue as usual.

"We will continue to make investments to modernize the facility in the future as it produces millions of high-quality tires", Hughes said.

The plant-originally a Continental A.G. factory that Conti closed in 2001 is rated at 19,000 tires a day with roughly 1,100 employees. A group of Mexican investors bought the facility from the German company and restarted production in mid-2005 using the Pneustone brand.