Federal-Mogul Corporation (USA) has reached an agreement to sell its McConnelsville, Ohio heavywall bearings operation to Miba Bearings US, LLC, a newly created division of Miba AG (Laarkirchen, Austria). Subject to international regulatory approvals, the acquisition should be complete by third quarter 2001. Terms of the sale were not immediately disclosed.

Miba AG is the holding company for a group of original equipment manufacturers which supply the international engine and vehicle industries. Miba Gleitlager AG began in 1947 and is the large-bearing market leader in Europe, second in the world. Its Bearing Group has operations in Austria, Germany, Singapore, Japan and the USA, manufacturing high-performance bearings for diesel and gas engines.

Miba's Bearing Group sales are approximately $65 million, employing 525 people. The McConnelsville operation is a major acquisition for Miba, adding approximately 270 people and sales of $33 million.

Heavywall bearings are defined as having a wall thickness of at least 0.25" (6.5mm) and diameter of at least 6" (152mm). A 500-ton press is required just to form the bearing halves.

Miba Bearings currently offers heavywall bearings in 80-120mm diameter for trucks and 130-550mm diameter for locomotives, ocean-going vessels and stationary generators.

The former Glacier Clevite Heavywall Bearings Division, the McConnelsville factory complex in southeast Ohio has approximately 270 employees and 100,000 square feet of floorspace. The factory can produce half-shell, full-round or specially configured single-flange or double-flange hydrostatic journal bearings. It is the world's largest manufacturer of heavywall bearings for large diesel engines; and major customers are General Electric and General Motors.

McConnelsville originally opened in July 1952 to supply bearings for the aircraft industry. Heavywall bearing capacity was added in 1967. Since then, the plant has had a number of owners, among them Clevite, Gould Engine Parts Division, Imperial Clevite, T&N plc, and Federal-Mogul.

Federal-Mogul acquired the McConnelsville factory in its ill-starred $3 billion 1998 acquisition of British autoparts maker T&N plc. The T&N acquisition brought with it asbestos liabilities and litigation which Federal-Mogul severely underestimated; ongoing asbestos liability costs have been a major factor in Federal-Mogul's financial problems.

In allowing the 1998 acquisition of T&N to proceed, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission required that Federal-Mogul divest all of T&N's polymer bearing and thinwall engine bearing operations, meaning the Glacier Vandervell and Clevite businesses. Federal-Mogul was also required to divest the McConnelsville Strip Facility, which manufactured cast copper-clad strip to make the bearings. F-M was allowed to keep the heavywall bearing business.

The thinwall bearing operations were acquired by Dana Corporation which paid $410 million for Glacier Vandervell and $20 million for Clevite.

"This sale is part of Federal-Mogul's continuing effort to focus on core business activities," said Chip McClure, F-M's President and COO.