The Turf Care Company are Ransomes Jacobsen Distributor of the Year

The Turf Care Company GmbH (TTC), based at Munster in Germany, is the Ransomes Jacobsen Distributor of the Year for 2006. Not only did they win the Ipswich-based turf equipment manufacturer's most prestigious accolade, they were also winners of the European Distributor of the Year award. RANSOMES JACOBSEN is a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company.

Presenting the silver trophy to TTC's Managing Director Alfons Gottemeyer at the Gala Dinner held at The Five Lakes Golf & Country Club in Essex, David Withers, Ransomes Jacobsen's Managing Director said, "TTC has shown great support for Ransomes Jacobsen over many years and continually take our market presence in Germany and Switzerland to new heights. This strong business relationship, coupled with excellent technical cooperation has resulted in significant benefits to both our companies. Sales in 2006 showed a 25% increase over the previous year and all areas of the business performed exceptionally well.

"It gives me immense pleasure to be presenting this award to Alfons, who was away from the business for a protracted period last year due to ill health, but is now back resuming his familiar role, running the organisation in his own inimitable way."

UK dealer TH White Ltd had a particularly good evening picking up two awards for Parts and Service excellence plus a further sales achievement award for the Ransomes Spider mower. Not to be overshadowed, Ernest Doe & Sons Ltd of Ulting in Essex, won three accolades: the ING Finance award; the UK E-Z-GO Dealer of the Year and UK Turf Dealer of the Year.

Completing the list of multiple winners, Green Mowers of Burgos in Spain won the European Parts Distributor award, the inaugural Marketing award and a Certificate of Merit in the European Turf Distributor of the Year category.

Ransomes Jacobsen is a subsidiary of Textron Inc., an $11 billion multi-industry company operating in 32 countries with approximately 40,000 employees. The company leverages its global network of aircraft, industrial and finance businesses to provide customers with innovative solutions and services. Textron is known around the world for its powerful brands such as Bell Helicopter, Cessna Aircraft, Jacobsen, Kautex, Lycoming, E-Z-GO, Greenlee, Fluid & Power, Textron Systems and Textron Financial Corporation. More information is available at www.textron.com.

The complete list of award winners is as follows: