280 Daines, Suite 300 • Birmingham • MI • 48099 • www.wingspancapital.com • 248.594.6830

Wingspan Capital Partners LLC Acquires Mechanical Components and
Specialty Bearing Company - Aetna Bearing in Franklin Park, IL

Birmingham, MI – May 29, 2009 // Wingspan Capital Partners LLC (“Wingspan”) announced today that it has acquired Aetna Bearing Company, www.aetnabearing.com, (“Aetna”). Aetna is a worldwide manufacturer and distributor of specialty bearings and mechanical components with integral bearings for a wide range of agricultural and industrial applications under the recognized Aetna Bearing brand name. Aetna designs, engineers, produces, and distributes its proprietary products for the agricultural, heavy equipment, general industrial, and automotive aftermarket industries. Its products include agricultural style sprockets and idlers, industrial ball thrust bearings, clutch release bearings, and precision bearings. Major customers include John Deere, Case New Holland, Kinze, Vermeer, Agco, Timken, SKF, Federal Mogul, and ZF.

Aetna was founded in 1917 and has a sustained history of profitability. Wingspan was introduced to Aetna by Daniel Fuhrman, who is the president and CEO of Wingspan portfolio company Bitzer Products Company www.bitzerproducts.com. The two businesses have tremendous market, customer, operational and management synergy which is expected to be exploited over time. Daniel Fuhrman will oversee Aetna and Bitzer as CEO of both entities.

“Wingspan portfolio company Bitzer Products manufactures high precision mechanical components such as shafts and gears, and hydraulic components such as spool valves, primarily from bar stock. Anti-friction components are almost always an important element of the mechanical systems which encompass Bitzer components. In many cases, Bitzer’s mechanical components are assembled with competitive bearings creating opportunities to cross sell product lines,” said Ray Gunn, managing partner, Wingspan Capital Partners. “However, we did not factor into our acquisition decision the customer, operation, marketing, selling or management synergy of these two businesses, we modeled them purely on a standalone basis. So any opportunity to generate economies or critical mass will be pure upside to our specialty manufacturing platform,” said Gunn.

“Aetna’s strong worldwide brand recognition and quality reputation among its agricultural and industrial customers give us a nice global presence with sourcing and distributing capabilities in China, Mexico, Latin America, and Europe, in addition to the U.S.” said Dan Fuhrman, Aetna’s new CEO.

“Additionally, the day-to-day management team invested in Aetna with Wingspan, strengthening the commitment of the entire team. The management team, which includes James Trauscht, president and general manager and Mark Boozell, vice president of finance and human resources, successfully re-architected the entire operation of Aetna to introduce lean manufacturing and low cost country sourcing to improve the overall operating performance of the business,” said Fuhrman.

About Wingspan Capital Partners LLC

Wingspan Capital Partners is a Private Equity Firm focused on investing in small businesses with niche or platform operations that may be in transition and re quire new ownership, resources and or direction. Wingspan considers opportunities in various industries from its combined network of business and professional relationships that satisfy Wingspans' “Investment Criteria”. The businesses should be in a large target market that is growing overall and is reachable by the business with the right resources and management. The business should have a sustainable competitive advantage and the business revenue and profit model should be credible, verifiable, efficient and sustainable.

For further information on the Aetna Bearing Company transaction or Wingspan Capital Partners, visit our respective websites at www.aetnabearing.com or www.wingspancapital.com or contact:
Raymond Gunn, Managing Partner, Wingspan Capital Partners at 248-961-0247 or Jim Trauscht, President and General Manager, Aetna Bearing Company, 630-694-0024, ext. 110