FreeMarkets Announces Agreement with Tomkins

    PITTSBURGH--Sept. 6, 2001--FreeMarkets, Inc.

    World Class Global Engineering Group to Source
    Goods and Services Through FreeMarkets;
    Agreement Follows Successful Completion of Pilot

    FreeMarkets, Inc. , the leading global sourcing market and provider of e-sourcing software and service solutions, today announced that it has signed an agreement with Tomkins, a world class global engineering group.
    Under the terms of the agreement, FreeMarkets will provide Tomkins with access to its e-sourcing software and service solutions, which Tomkins will use to source a variety of goods and services for its global operations. The agreement follows the completion of a successful pilot program that began November 2000.
    "Tomkins is aggressively pursuing technology that drives out inefficiencies in our supply chain, increases our overall speed of decision making and execution, and reduces our overall procurement costs," said Chris Ehrhard, Director eProcurement, Tomkins. "FreeMarkets' e-sourcing technology and services are helping us achieve our goals in this area."
    To date, Tomkins has used FreeMarkets to achieve its quality and cost goals on goods and services across a wide range of supply categories including: stampings, metal fasteners, plastic injection molding, paperboard products, and more.
    "We are very pleased that Tomkins has chosen to extend its relationship with FreeMarkets," said Jim Zuffoletti, Vice President, Diversified Manufacturing at FreeMarkets. "Tomkins is an innovative company in its use of Internet technology, and we look forward to continuing our relationship with them and to delivering additional savings and efficiencies through our industry-leading e-sourcing technology, market information and services."

    About Tomkins

    Tomkins is a world class global engineering group with market and technical leadership across three businesses; Industrial and Automotive, Air Systems Components and Engineered and Construction Products. Tomkins has sales of approximately 3.3 billion English pounds, employing some 40,000 people throughout the world.

    About FreeMarkets

    FreeMarkets is the leading global sourcing market and provider of e-sourcing software and service solutions. Through its unique combination of industry-leading, web-based software, in-depth supply market information, market operations and expert sourcing services, FreeMarkets has helped customers around the world source more than $21 billion in goods and services in more than 185 different supply verticals and identify savings of more than $4 billion. FreeMarkets can be found on the Web at www.freemarkets.com. FreeMarkets(R) and BidWare(R) are registered trademarks of FreeMarkets, Inc., and FullSource(TM) and QuickSource(TM) are pending trademarks of FreeMarkets, Inc.

    Forward-looking statements

    Statements in this press release that are not historical facts, including those statements that refer to FreeMarkets' plans, prospects, expectations, strategies, intentions, and beliefs, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on information available to FreeMarkets today, and FreeMarkets assumes no obligation to update these statements as circumstances change. There are risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, market acceptance of FreeMarkets' B2B Global Marketplace and new products and services that FreeMarkets introduces, the competitive nature of the market for business-to-business online auction and e-commerce services, FreeMarkets' ability to attract new customers, through its own efforts and through partnerships and alliances, to retain and increase revenue from existing customers and to attract new customers, FreeMarkets' ability to attract and retain qualified personnel, the size of the market for used equipment and surplus inventory, the demand for online auction and other asset recovery services by buyers and suppliers, and FreeMarkets' ability to integrate acquisitions and manage growth. You should carefully review these and other risk factors that are described in more detail in FreeMarkets' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.