Statement by CEO at the Annual General Meeting THE FOSCHINI GROUP LTD Reg. No.: 1937/009504/06 Code : TFG - TFGP ISIN : ZAE000148466 – ZAE000148516 STATEMENT BY THE CEO At TFG’s 76th Annual General Meeting held today, CEO Doug Murray updated the meeting as follows: RESULTS FOR 2013 Despite the current difficult consumer environment the group achieved a solid performance, producing its highest ever profits with continued gains in market share. After a good first half performance the second half became more challenging. Particularly hard hit were the discretionary categories of jewellery and cellphones which had a weak festive season. Notwithstanding the strong comparative base, retail turnover increased by 10,9% to R12,9 billion whilst headline earnings per share increased by 11,2% to 858,6 cents per share. Our total dividend for the year increased by 11,2% to 506,0 cents per share. PROSPECTS FOR THE 2014 FINANCIAL YEAR I would now like to comment briefly on the group’s prospects for 2014. - Economic conditions in South Africa will remain difficult in the year ahead with the credit environment likely to deteriorate further due to current levels of consumer indebtedness. Strict risk management practices will continue to be implemented. - In line with our strategy of investing for long term growth we will continue to open new stores in certain of our formats and we anticipate increasing trading space by approximately 6% in the current year. - Trading conditions for the first five months of this financial year have remained challenging. Total sales have grown by 9,1% over the previous period with same stores sales growth of 4,1%. Sales for the 8 weeks since the beginning of July have shown a stronger trend with growth of 13%. - In the current challenging credit environment, our retail debtors’ book is performing within management expectations. - Our RCS subsidiary in which we have a 55% shareholding continues to perform satisfactorily. On 16th August we issued a voluntary SENS announcement advising that we have received an unsolicited expression of interest to acquire 100% of RCS which our board is considering. Further announcements will be made in this regard as and when appropriate. - In light of the current difficult economic environment, which we expect will continue into next year, we believe the group is positioned to deliver a satisfactory result for this year, remembering that the second half of the year is heavily dependent on Christmas trading, which will largely determine the performance of the group in the second half. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Once more on behalf of my fellow board members and myself I thank all our dedicated staff for their hard work and continued excellent performance during the year. Cape Town 2 September 2013 SPONSOR: UBS South Africa (Pty) Ltd Date: 02/09/2013 01:41:00 Produced by the JSE SENS Department. The SENS service is an information dissemination service administered by the JSE Limited ('JSE'). The JSE does not, whether expressly, tacitly or implicitly, represent, warrant or in any way guarantee the truth, accuracy or completeness of the information published on SENS. The JSE, their officers, employees and agents accept no liability for (or in respect of) any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential loss or damage of any kind or nature, howsoever arising, from the use of SENS or the use of, or reliance on, information disseminated through SENS.