Carpetright Sees Difficult Year Ahead

London, England, June 30, 2008--Carpetright Plc, the UK's largest floor coverings retailer with 675 stores, reported a 7.6 percent increase in pretax profit but CEO Lord Harris cautioned that the current year will be one of the toughest he has faced in half a century in the industry.

"My 50th year of selling carpets has been a challenging one," said Harris.

"There is no doubt that the UK floor coverings market became more difficult, in line with other housing and DIY related sectors. This challenge has remained and I believe that the next year [to end-April 2009] will be one of the most difficult I have seen."

Jason Grover, interim group finance director told reporters that before Tuesday's statement that analysts' consensus for the current year was for a pretax profit of 58 million pounds, but he expects the forecasts to be cut.

For the 53 weeks to May 3, Carpetright made an underlying pretax profit of 62.1 million pounds, up from 57.7 million pounds last year.

"The last year has been more challenging than we anticipated with the deteriorating economic environment, a decline in consumer confidence and a reduction in housing transactions having adverse impacts on revenue," the group said.