Chain Store Sales Up Last Week

New York, NY, October 30, 2007--Chain-store sales rose 0.1% for the week ended October 27 compared with the prior week according to a survey released by the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and UBS Securities.

Compared with the same week of 2006 sales were up 2.5%.

"Although it is always difficult to assess what the most important drivers of sales are in any given week, Halloween is the likely cause for the latest week's lift since the warm weather, fires in California and higher gasoline prices were clearly negative factors," said Michael Niemira, chief economist for the ICSC. Overall, ICSC continues to expect that October sales will increase by about 2%, on a year-over-year basis.