Comau Pico Reports Market Share Increase for Core Businesses

    SOUTHFIELD, Mich.--Aug. 12, 2002--During a Communications Forum for employees, Comau Pico Chief Operations Officer Don Hemberg reported that, despite the recent decline in the automotive industry, the company has gained significant market share in its body assembly, powertrain, and maintenance services.
    "The past two years have shown our revenue dip to early `90's levels," commented Hemberg, "yet we've been able to increase market share in our core competencies and expect things to continue to improve over the next year.
    "The entire equipment-making industry was hit hard by the auto production slowdowns. But our current projections indicate we must start acquiring additional manufacturing floorspace to insure we can accommodate our customers' future project requirements."
    Hemberg believes the company is positioned for growth due to a better revenue mix than it had in the past. At one time, over 75 percent of Comau Pico's revenues were generated solely by body assembly systems. Today, the company has supplemented this with a strong presence in powertrain assembly and testing, die manufacturing, and support and maintenance of existing manufacturing systems.
    The Communications Forum -- conceived and moderated by Comau Pico Chief Executive Officer Bob Stoutenberg -- was held off-site at the Ford Conference Center (Dearborn) and split into three sessions over a two-day period in order to accommodate the company's 2000 employees.
    Also speaking at the Forum was Comau C.E.O. Piero Maritano, who commended the Comau Pico employees on the company's current strength and presented corporate Comau S.p.A. strategy; clarifying issues regarding majority stakeholder Fiat's (Turin, Italy) recent announcement to sell the Comau S.p.A. division. Maritano commented that although it has always been Fiat's strategy to reduce its ownership in Comau, there is "no urgency to sell and no negotiation in process."
    Comau Pico was created in 1999 when Progressive Tool & Industries Company (PICO) became the North American subsidiary of Comau, S.p.A., a global industrial automation company with sales exceeding $2 billion and ranked as one of the world's largest suppliers of manufacturing equipment and systems. Comau Pico designs, builds and installs integrated manufacturing systems for the production of vehicular body structures and powertrain components servicing the automotive, heavy truck, agricultural/construction, aerospace and recreational vehicle markets.