NN Inc. (Johnson City, Tennessee) will close its precision ball factory in Walterboro, South Carolina, eliminating 85 jobs.

The factory will operate normally until November 2, 2001, then begin a 60-day shutdown schedule and be closed by the end of 2001.

Roderick Baty, NN's Chairman and CEO, said, "The closing of our Walterboro, South Carolina plant is a difficult but necessary decision. In order to better serve our worldwide customers, we have worked diligently over the past two years redistributing our global manufacturing base beyond North America. The Euroball joint venture concluded in August 2000 was a part of these ongoing efforts to locate our facilities in closer proximity to our customers' operations. This necessitated a corresponding reduction in our capacity in North America. We believe NN's manufacturing facilities are now more appropriately balanced to competitively serve our customers on both an international and domestic basis."

The company will take a one-time charge in 2000 of USD $1 million for the closing, which should result in $1.5 million yearly cost savings. NN's 2000 sales were $132 million.

NN's other U.S. manufacturing facilities, in Erwin and Mountain City, Tennessee, are not affected.

Separately, NN has named President and CEO Roderick "Rock" Baty to the additional post of Chairman.

Mr. Baty replaces founder Richard Ennen, who is retiring as Chairman but will retain a seat on the board.

In 1980, Mr. Ennen was a founder of NN Ball & Roller (renamed NN Inc. in June 2000) as a manufacturer of balls and rollers, based on his ideas for new machinery and new approaches to manufacturing precision balls and rollers.