Applied Industrial Technologies (Cleveland, Ohio) has authorized an aggressive share repurchase program for up to one million shares of the company's common stock.

The program, if fully executed, would involve buy-back of fully 5% of AIT's outstanding shares.

The company's program comes as many industrial companies, if they have the resources, are taking advantage of generally depressed share prices to retrench and support their shares. Repurchasing shares not only helps shore up open market prices, but also gives the company additional flexibility when markets improve again.

Applied's new effort comes on top of another aggressive buy-back program already in progress.

During calendar year 2001, AIT has repurchased 652,000 of its shares on the open market.