Hampshire Acquires Fairchild Industrial Products Company

Winston-Salem, NC - On July 29, 2005, FIPC Acquisition LLC, a newly-formed entity controlled by Hampshire Equity Partners ("Hampshire"), acquired Fairchild Industrial Products Company ("Fairchild"). Based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Fairchild is the leading designer and manufacturer of pneumatic and electro-pneumatic industrial control products and power transmission products.

Fairchild's products serve as critical components in a variety of machine and process control applications in which precision and reliability are essential. Fairchild's industrial control products support complex machine applications in end-markets such as chemical manufacturing and petroleum refining systems, food processing machinery, pharmaceutical and biomedical equipment, robotics, and paper and pulp processing equipment. The power transmission products are used in food processing systems, packaging machinery, paper converting, and printing presses. The Company has served the industrial controls market since 1955, and has developed strong brand awareness as well as an industry-wide reputation for reliability and responsiveness.

Hampshire expects to grow Fairchild organically through the development of new products and new markets, and the Company will also explore acquisitions of additional product lines that would benefit Fairchild's current customer base.