(Morristown, Tennessee)--As of March 27, 2002, MAHLE Industries Incorporated located in Morristown, Tennessee, obtained the majority ownership of Brockhaus Canada, Inc. in an asset purchase acquisition. The new company will be called MAHLE Brockhaus, Inc., located on 400 Nalon Road in Gananoque, Ontario, Canada K7G 2V1.
The ever increasing trend toward system and module supplies to the automotive and diesel engine industry will be actively enhanced by this acquisition. It provides the MAHLE Group with in-house produced forged steel blanks for connecting rods, a product which is increasingly used also in the North American automotive sector of the business, thus following the European lead.

The principal products of MAHLE and MAHLE Brockhaus are pistons, piston rings, piston pins, bushings and now also connecting rods for a wide variety of internal combustion engine applications, enabling the MAHLE Group to provide power cell assemblies as complete modules ready for immediate installation on OEM assembly lines.

We are now the only company worldwide which provides the entire range of products from within our own group, which truly reflects our leading position as a tier one power cell provider in both, engineering and manufacturing/logistics, Hans D. Jehle, President of MAHLE, Inc. said.

The acquisition is a logical consequence of a 25.1% acquisition by MAHLE GmbH, headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, of Brockhaus Soehne, headquartered in Plettenberg, Germany, in January 2001. An increase in ownership of potentially up to 100 % is planned for the future. Besides Plettenberg, Germany, and the above-described location in Gananoque, Canada, Brockhaus Soehne also has another production location in Spain as well as a joint venture in Brazil.

The German headquartered MAHLE Group is the leading manufacturer of pistons and other engine components. In the last fiscal year, the three business sectors, Piston and Engine Components, Filter Systems and Valve Train Systems achieved worldwide sales of EU 2.8 billion with more than 28,000 employees in more than 50 production plants.