Titan International turned to Clint Eastwood for inspiration as it unveiled forecast-beating results, saying it had experienced a showing of "the good, the bad and the ugly" of the takeover process.

The tyre maker for tractor brands such as John Deere and New Holland said it was investigating acquisitions. The "good" aspect being was that it had identified a "lot of" prospective targets.

"The bad is that everything takes so long, and you have to look under so many layers of carpet to find all the dirt," Maurice Taylor, the Titan chairman and chief executive, said.

"That means lawyers, lawyers and more lawyers, before you even get to the accountants."

Sellers, and banks 

The last attribute, as taken from the title of the famous western film starring Mr Eastwood, concerned the nature of the potential acquisitions.

"Many things are ugly�a lot of companies want too much money, period. Manufacturing is tough wherever you are," Mr Taylor said, adding in banks as another headache.

"Even if you have the cash, they don't want you to spend it, let alone borrow any from them."

'Nowhere to go but up' 

The comments came as Titan unveiled earnings down 70% to $2.1m for the first three months of the year, on revenues down 15.5% at $196.4m.

The sales declines was led by the US-based group's farm division, where Titan did not expect any growth in mid and small products until next year.

"Our construction business is up slightly, because it had nowhere to go but up," Mr Taylor said.

However, the group had started, after a slow start to 2010, to see improvement every month, led by sales of tyres for bigger farm machinery.

Shares soar

The earnings, on a per share basis, came in at $0.06, beating Wall Street forecasts of a flat result.

"Overall, large agriculture has started to recover and continues to be solid; the prospects for mining appear strong and could positively impact near-term results," analysts at Oppenheimer said, maintaining a "perform" rating on Titan stock.

The shares closed up 11.7% at $12.81 in New York, their highest finish since October 2008..