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Press release
To be published on Thursday 22 May 2008 at 12

SOK to open second Prisma in St Petersburg in the autumn

SOK will open a second Prisma in St. Petersburg in the autumn of 2008. The approximately 8,500 square metre Prisma hypermarkets will be located in a new shopping centre. The total area of the centre is 18,200 square metres, and it will include over 30 speciality stores, a fitness centre, restaurants and other entertainment services.

Prisma will be located in Leningrad oblast, by the road leading from St. Petersburg to Toksovo. The location, to the south-east of St. Petersburg, is good. Approximately four kilometres from the location there is a busy ring road, and roads leading to Kuzmolovo, Toksovo and Novotoksovo districts go through the area. Approximately 650 parking places will be available for Prisma customers.

- I am confident about the attractiveness of the unit in the Novoe Devyatkino area, as around 250,000 people live within a ten-minute drive from Prisma, says Vesa Punnonen, Managing Director, SOK Retail Int. Oy.

No other important grocery stores are in the area, although dozens of residential buildings have been built and will be built in the vicinity of Prisma. The range of products to be offered in the hypermarket will be accommodated to suit customers' consumption patterns.

- We will proceed in our Prisma projects according to our strategy. This and next year, we are set to open three to five Prisma hypermarkets and supermarkets in St. Petersburg, and in the long term we expect to open 15 to 20 units, Punnonen says.

The first Prisma Superstore will be opened by the Nevskiy Prospect in the downtown area in the summer. The total area of the Prisma, located in Hotel Moskva's shopping, business and fitness centre, is approximately 2,500 square metres. The Prisma chain's competitive advantages in the contested St. Petersburg market are reliability, a wide range of products, efficiency and easy shopping.

The Prisma chain is the market leader for hypermarket stores in Finland. Internationalisation supports the S Group's business concept to produce services and benefits for its customer-owners. Profitability in Russia, increase in the value of business operations, as well as increasing tourism make the expansion to St. Petersburg worthwhile. SOK already has three hotel projects in St. Petersburg, the first of which, Holiday Club St. Petersburg, was opened in January. Sokos Hotel Olympic Garden will be opened at the beginning of June, and Sokos Hotel Vasilievsky at the end of this year.

Additional information:
Vesa Punnonen, Managing Director, SOK Retail Int. Oy, vesa.punnonen(@)sok.fi,
tel. +358 10 76 82893, GSM +358 50 370 6471
Antti Sippola, Senior Vice President, business units, SOK, antti.sippola(@)sok.fi,
tel. +358 10 76 82890, GSM +358 500 364 650

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