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Press release
Released for publication on 16 January 2007 at 11.00 a.m.

The S Group to open a five-star spa hotel in St Petersburg

The SOK has acquired the business operations of Holiday Club St Petersburg being built in the city of St Petersburg. The spa hotel will open for business in summer 2007.

The transaction involves the business operations of the hotel, spa and restaurant at Holiday Club St Petersburg. The purchase price of the operations acquired from Holiday Club Resorts Oy has not been disclosed.

Holiday Club St Petersburg spa hotel is situated on the Island of Vasily in central St Petersburg. The most popular cultural sights, such as St Isaac's Cathedral and the Hermitage, are within walking distance. The hotel will have 276 rooms, a number of suites and eight meeting facilities, the largest of which can accommodate more than 300 people. With seven restaurants to its name, the hotel will be the setting for a variety of dining and entertainment. The evening music restaurant will also feature a bowling alley. The hotel will also boast a well-equipped gym for the most active keep-fit enthusiasts. The new hotel will have 30 heated parking spaces. It will be ready in June 2007.

The full-service spa will open at the hotel in September. It will offer a wide range of pampering treatments, an extensive sauna world and an exhilarating pool department. The spa will be built on the site of a historic property, whose old vaults will create a unique setting in which to be pampered. The planning has paid a fitting tribute to the history of the building, which at one time served as a wine cellar. The hotel will comprise total floor space of 25,000 sq. metres. Holiday Club St Petersburg will be a high-end five-star hotel.

Holiday Club St Petersburg will have 26 weekly time-share apartments, whose range of services will remain as before. The transaction does not apply to the real estate, which is owned by London & Regional Properties. The hotel is being constructed by LenSpecSMU, a St Petersburg construction company.

"The hotel market in St Petersburg is extremely competitive. Nevertheless, the Holiday Club concept will be unique in the city. There will be demand for it, both among foreign customers as well as on the domestic market in Russia, says Juhani Järvenpää, President and CEO of SOK Holding Oy.

"The S Group's aim is to offer Finnish customer-owners additional options for leisure travel. With three hotels, we've now reached the scale of expansion into the St Petersburg area as defined by our strategy."

The S Group is currently constructing two four-star hotels in the heart of St Petersburg. Sokos Hotel Vasilievsky, the other hotel to be located on Vasily Island, will provide 255 rooms, 6 suites, a lobby bar, restaurant, music pub, small meeting facilities, saunas and a garage. It is due to open at the end of 2007. Sokos Hotel Olympic Garden on Moskovskii Prospekt is scheduled to be ready this autumn. Situated in a verdant park, the hotel will comprise 348 rooms, 13 meeting facilities, two restaurants, a lobby bar, a cosy area with an open fireplace and 40 heated parking spaces. SOK's subsidiary, SOK Holding Oy, owns Sokos Hotels St Petersburg, the company responsible for hotel business operations in the city.

For further information, please contact:

Juhani Järvenpää, President and CEO, SOK Holding Oy, tel. +358 50 388 3545, juhani.jarvenpaa@sok.fi

Within the S Group, Sokotel Oy and regional cooperative enterprises in Finland as well as AS Sokotel in Estonia operate hotels and restaurants. In 2006 the S Group's hotel and restaurant business comprised a comprehensive network of 52 hotels and more than 530 restaurants located around Finland. Of the hotels, 39 belong to the Sokos Hotels chain and 7 to the Radisson SAS chain. In spring 2006 SOK acquired the business operations of Holiday Club Finland's 6 spa hotels in Finland. Outside Finland, the S Group carries on hotel and restaurant operations in Estonia, where hospitality customers are served by Sokos Hotel Viru with its restaurants, and a food court that operates at the Prisma hypermarket in the Sikupilli Shopping Centre. Sokotel Oy's net turnover in 2005 was EUR 158.3 million. Retail sales by the S Group's hotel and restaurant trade totalled EUR 635 million, an increase of 2 per cent on the figure a year earlier. Accommodation sales came to EUR 182 million, restaurant sales amounted to EUR 453 million. The S Group's growth was on a par with the average for the sector, at around the 5 per cent mark. The S Group's market share measured in terms of net turnover by hotels was 24 per cent.

Images of the new Holiday Club St Petersburg can be downloaded from the S Group's Media Service at mediapalvelu.s-kanava.fi. The service is in Finnish. The new international web pages will open in the end on January.

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