SKF and Timken start joint venture in Brazil

SKF and Timken start joint venture in Brazil SKF and Timken have decided to start a jointly owned stand-alone company in Brazil for the manufacturing of forged and turned steel rings to be used in roller bearings. SKF and Timken will have 50 percent each of the shares in the new company, International Component Supply Ltda - ICS. The new company will start to operate during the first quarter of 2001. The operations will be located to one part of SKF's existing manufacturing facilities that will be expanded, in Cajamar, outside Sao Paulo. The economy of scale will contribute to enhance the competitiveness in both cost and quality. ICS will initially supply SKF's and Timken's Brazilian subsidiaries and have yearly sales of about 13 million USD. The number of employees will be about 170. - This step is in line with the SKF Group's strategy to further rationalize our component manufacturing. It will help us to both reduce costs and to improve our asset utilization in Brazil, says Tom Johnstone, President, SKF Automotive Division. This is also a further example of how SKF uses partnership to improve competitiveness. SKF is the world leading supplier of bearings and services with yearly sales of 4.4 billion USD. Timken is the world's largest taper bearing company with yearly sales of 2.5 billion USD. Göteborg, January 9, 2001 Aktiebolaget SKF (publ.) For further information, please contact: Lars G Malmer, SKF Group Communication, tel +46-(0)31-3371541, e-mail: Lars.G.Malmer@skf.com Aktiebolaget SKF, SE-415 50 Göteborg, Sweden, tel +46-31-3371000, fax +46- 31-3372832, www.skf.com ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by BIT http://www.bit.se The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2001/01/09/20010109BIT00350/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2001/01/09/20010109BIT00350/bit0002.pdf