---

Timken Enters Joint Venture with SKF for Bearing Components

9 January 2001

Timken Enters Joint Venture with SKF for Bearing Components

    CANTON, Ohio, Jan. 9 Timken do Brasil and SKF do Brasil
agreed to enter into a joint venture to supply forged rings for bearing
manufacture.
    International Components Supply, Limitada, will operate as an independent,
equally owned manufacturing facility in Brazil. The venture will acquire the
assets of the machining facility located at the SKF do Brasil bearing plant in
Cajamar, Sao Paulo, Brazil. The facility, with approximately 170 employees,
will produce forged and turned steel rings for tapered roller and ball
bearings. The Timken do Brasil bearing operation is also located in Sao Paulo.
    "This joint venture continues the transformation of our company to one
that is putting greater emphasis on increasing innovation, working more
closely with customers and consistently achieving profitable growth. One key
to that profitability is continuously seeking opportunities to reduce costs
and increase competitiveness," said Karl P. Kimmerling, president - automotive
-- Timken. "This joint venture offers us an opportunity to utilize available
capacity in the Brazilian market to reduce our costs and establish a world-
class source locally for this material."
    Timken currently purchases steel rings from several sources outside of
Brazil that will continue to supply the company in other parts of the world.
Timken do Brasil also has a small operation to manufacture such components
from steel tubing. That will be closed.
    "This sort of cooperative effort with a competitor offers efficiencies for
both companies, while allowing each to produce differentiated products
independently," said T. Russell Pender, president - Timken do Brasil.  "Each
of us will still supply raw material to our own specifications. And, this
machining process has no impact on the design, geometry or finish of our
products -- the elements that differentiate our bearings."
    The joint venture will be operational in the first quarter 2001. The
companies estimate annual sales of US$13 million (25 million Brazilian Reais).