Johns Manville increases its global presence in nonwovens markets:

Bad Homburg (April 17, 2002) --- Johns Manville (JM) is expanding its nonwovens roofing, specialty and filtration markets through a focus on investments and new products. Supporting this expansion are a new production site in Trnava/Slovakia and new production lines in Berlin and Wertheim/Germany.

Beginning this year Johns Manville opened a new air media line in its Wertheim, Germany facility. " We followed the demand of the market and of our customers and transferred a part of the production of mats for air filtration to Europe", said Luc Mechelaere, vice president and general manager of Johns Manville Europe. Johns Manville Europe is a business unit of the Engineered Products Group, one of Johns Manville's three strategic business units.

"We believe in providing added-value products and services to our customers," continued Mechelaere. "Our broad product assortment supports our global growth plan, which is focused on continuing to provide innovative solutions to better serve our regional and global customers."

"Our recently introduced product CombiMat® a versatile inlay for today's new generation of roofing substrates, combining the advantages of polyester and glass fiber nonwovens in one single product is now performing very well," said Luc Mechelaere. Johns Manville is the only company offering added-value glass and polyester nonwovens for building and industrial applications.

Johns Manville, a Berkshire Hathaway company, is a leading manufacturer and marketer of premium-quality building and specialty products. In business since 1858, the Denver-based company has sales in excess of $2 billion and holds leadership positions in all of the key markets that it serves. Johns Manville employs approximately 9,500 people and operates 52 manufacturing facilities in North America, Europe and Asia. Johns Manville Europe is the European operations for one of Johns Manville's three strategic business units, and has 11 manufacturing locations in Germany, Sweden, the U.K., Poland, Slovakia and China. Additional information can be found at www.jm.com.