HOUSTON, TX, January 11, 2000 -- AMVECO Magnetics, Inc., the leading North American supplier of toroidal power components, announced today that it had acquired Talema Electronics Inc., designers and manufacturers or toroidal transformers, inductors and HF magnetics. AMVECO Magnetics' main plant and corporate headquarters are located in Houston, Texas. The Company also has a manufacturing facility in Saltillo, Mexico. Talema Electronic is located in St. James, Missouri.

Effective immediately, all engineering and customer support activities for the new organization will be centralized at the Houston facility. The Talema location in St. James will continue as a manufacturing operation, providing the new AMVECO with the ability to meet production requirements from any of three facilities. Both the Houston and Saltillo manufacturing facilities are ISO 9001 certified.

Tomas Palm, President of AMVECO Magnetics, descries the acquisition as a major step in the evolution of toroidal transformer products in North America.

"Throughout Europe, electronic OEMs have been offering their customers smaller, lighter, and more efficient equipment thanks to the advantages of toroidal transformers. In North America, the use of toroids has grown rapidly in the last couple of years, but due to the fact that the manufacturing base has been highly fragmented, no one supplier has assembled the critical mass of engineering and manufacturing resources necessary to truly serve the needs of OEM designers. With the addition of Talema Electronic, we believe AMVECO has achieved that critical mass and is positioned to make toroidal transformers a viable alternative for every OEM design engineer."

The majority of transformers currently sold in North America use a stacked lamination design. According to Palm, "Toroidal transformers offer smaller size, lower weight (up to a 50% reduction), easier mounting, lower stray magnetic fields, lower audible hum and improved efficiency. These advantages account for their growing popularity with many electronic OEMs."

AMVECO Magnetics supplies toroidal power transformers from 15 VA to 20,000 VA for general electronic and medical equipment applications. They will continue to supply all current Talema products, including a family of propriety transformers for mounting on a printed circuit board. The Company has a staff of experienced transformer engineers who are equipped with state-of-the-art CAD capabilities that allow virtually overnight response to customer inquiries. AMVECO can also provide test data and construction documentation to support almost any safety agency requirements. The Company also supplies value-added services that range from terminating transformers with custom connectors, to delivering completely assembled and tested power supplies to customers' specifications.

Both AMVECO Magnetics and Talema Electronic are privately owned companies. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

For additional information, contact AMVECO Magnetics, Inc., 10401 Westoffice Drive, Houston, TX 77042. Tel: 713-977-5031