News Release

Sale of Special Bearing Business in Europe

NSK Ltd. (“NSK”, Tokyo, Japan, Seiichi Asaka, President) has reached agreement with RotoPrecision Inc. (Missisauga, Canada, Keith Mayo, Managing Director) regarding the sale of all shares of Waelzlager Industriewerke Bulle AG (“WIB”, Bulle, Switzerland) which is wholly owned by NSK Europe Ltd., NSK’s European subsidiary in UK. Signing on the final agreement took place on January 31st, 2003 and the sale of shares is expected to close on March 31st, 2003.

Under the “Select and Focus” strategy of NSK, the special bearing business conducted by WIB is classified as one of the non-core businesses for NSK and therefore, NSK has been discussing the restructuring of WIB while assuring the responsibility of supply to our customers. In its effort, NSK reached a conclusion that WIB will be best run by RotoPrecision Inc., a company engaged in specialty-design and precision-engineered products including precision bearings. NSK will continue to sell WIB products through NSK sales channel for a certain time period even after the change of ownership.

In order to improve profitability in European operation, NSK has executed various restructuring activities in which focusing and strengthening the core business is the most important objective. Transferring WIB’s business is one of those restructuring activities which enable NSK to effectively allocate more resources into the core-business.