Strong results for financial year 2007/08 Sales €647.4 m up 9% EBITDA €62.5 m up 22% EBITDA margin 10% Net profit €28.6 m up 28% Highlights • Net sales • FY2007/08 €647.4m up 9% • Q42007/08 €132.0m down 5.4%, but stable on like for like basis, despite: o Easter falling in Q3 instead of Q4 as last year o adverse currency impact totalling €9.1 m due to EUR/GBP exchange rate • EBITDA • FY2007/08 €62.5m up 22% • Q4 2007/08 €8.5m up 43% (up 21% on like for like basis), despite: o Easter falling in Q3 instead of Q4 as last year o adverse currency impact due to EURGBP exchange rate totalling €1.0 m • EBITDA margin 10% (on continuing operations and excluding exceptional items) • Net profit • FY2007/08 €28.6 m up 28% o Q4 2007/08 €3.5m stable against last year • Earnings per share from continuing operations € 0.491 up 26% • Net cash flow from operating activities €60m up by 33% or €15m • Equity ratio increased to 47.6% and net debt reduced by €25 m to €166.7m • Board of directors will propose a payment of dividends totalling €12 m at the Group's AGM on 20 October Xavier Govare, CEO: "Alfesca delivered solid and satisfactory results for the 2007/08 financial year in a very challenging environment. In July 2007, when Alfesca started its financial year, we could not have foreseen the many significant challenges that we were about to face. These included a strong increase of our raw material costs; utility and energy costs reaching historical highs; a general reduction in consumption in our main geographic markets, falling consumer confidence; increasing inflation across Europe and a very adverse currency fluctuation due to the weakening of the Pound sterling against the Euro, which negatively affected the results of our UK operations. Despite this gloomy back drop, I am pleased to say that we responded to all these difficulties vigorously and with total commitment of our people. Alfesca's business model, based on four pillars, has clearly demonstrated its strength during this testing time, with its capacity to resist these challenges better than others. The determination of our people to find solutions and to continue to innovate and develop our markets has done the rest. Q4 has been particularly affected by the adverse trading environment, since all the negative economic factors reached their peak with the price of oil reaching US$150 per barrel, inflation rising above 4% and consumer confidence dropping to its lowest level. As a consequence, our sales in Q4 were negatively impacted due to these factors and due to unfavourable positioning of Easter in Q3 this year as compared to Q4 last year. The positioning of the Easter sales had a significant impact on 3 of our pillars. At the beginning of June, we were pleased to announce the decision by His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Khalifa Al-Thani to make a significant investment in Alfesca and join as a new shareholder; a notable development that clearly illustrates the attractiveness of Alfesca to the wider international investment community. This equity infusion will put Alfesca in a very good position to finance its external growth strategy and enable it to seize good acquisition opportunities as they arise. Looking forward, we foresee the adverse trading conditions continuing for some time. We expect consumption levels to remain low in the coming months with raw material and utility costs staying at relatively high levels as they do not currently show any sign suggesting a sharp decrease. In response, it will be necessary for us to recover such continued inflationary costs through necessary price increases, which is inevitably a difficult exercise in the poor retail environment. As a further measure, we are continuing to push ahead with a number of cost reduction initiatives with the objective of reducing our cost base by aiming to find saving in such areas as energy consumption; general overheads and transportation across all parts of the Group. We expect to see the first results of these initiatives in the coming quarters. We are now in the first half of our new financial year, which is a key period due to the seasonality of our sales based around Christmas. Sound innovation, competent execution and competitiveness will be the key factors in ensuring that Alfesca continues to deliver satisfactory results.”