Press Release: Q1 Early Results

Neither the sudden National elections nor the catastrophic fires with the distressing consequences for the total of Greek society, managed to decelerate the Jumbo Group’s constant growth.
 

The management informs the shareholders, which are partners in our efforts, that during the first quarter of the financial year 2007/2008, sales increased by 18% y-o-y which is ahead of the management guidance of 12% -15% sales increase.

Fire had also a direct impact at Jumbo Group. On August 15 the Jumbo shop in Kolonos got fire and as a result its operation was suspended for one month.

The management would like to highlight that the satisfactory results were realized in a complicated national and international environment with negative characteristics:

• The dramatic reduction of Chinese subsidies to the exporters by 8 bps as of 01/07/2007 created a disruption in ports and to products deliveries especially of the back to school products in July and August.
• In China and internationally the cost of money is increasing and as a consequence the cost of goods is increasing too.
• The gradual revaluation of Chinese Yuan and the spectacular developments in the economies of Asia have a negative effect on prices and on deliveries of the products in time.
• The Greek economy despite the fact that it continues to grow with a rate above 4% due mainly to consumption, one can not disregard dangers for the future due to the long lack of measures for the increase of productivity combined with lack of support for such changes from Greek society.

The management would like to inform the shareholders that we are working in order to launch our first store in Balkans until December, before the Christmas period. The store is located near the center of Sofia, Bulgaria.

If there are no last minute surprises from the local bureaucracy, the first shop near the center of Sofia will open in line with the management’s expectations and then we will proceed with the construction of 2 more in the neighbour country. The Group has already acquired a plot of 32.500m2 in the of the Bulgarian capital, aiming at the construction of a second hyper-store while the company has one more plot inside Sofia for the construction of one more store.

Today, the company operates 39 Jumbo stores of which 16 are situated in Attica, 21 in the Greek province and 2 in Cyprus. The company will introduce in this financial year a new hyper store at the North side of Attica region, Varibobi. The management, in the medium-term, targets to increase its market share above 38% and this will be achieved with new capital investments of € 150 millions in the next three years.

The management, as a result of the exceptional performance of the Group, will propose at the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders the distribution of 32 eurocents dividend per share an increase of 39% against last year.