MAISONS FRANCE CONFORT

Acquisition of the company Les Bastides

The MAISONS France CONFORT Group has announced its total buyout of the company LES BASTIDES, based in Alpes Maritimes (06), with effect from 1 July 2008 and following exercise of the usual conditions precedent.

LES BASTIDES has been building houses, since 1996. It has an excellent reputation and, for this reason, has the patronage of numerous parties, which constitute the major part of its prospects.
With forty or so houses built a year, the company, which has a large capacity for growth, totalled revenues of €4.3 million, as at 31/12/2007, with a profit margin of 6.4%.

This acquisition, in the French department of Alpes Maritimes, where the MAISONS FRANCE CONFORT Group has, until now, had little activity, completes the company’s expansion into the whole of the PACA [Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur] region.
Mr and Mrs Mourey, founders and directors of the company retain their posts and will join MFC PACA.

This acquisition brings to three the number of external growth operations carried out by MAISONS FRANCE CONFORT, since the beginning of 2008. In a context that has seen some minor homebuilders experience difficulties, the Group has continued to have numerous opportunities for acquiring high-quality businesses.

Sound factors to resist the current economic situation

In a difficult market, MAISONS FRANCE CONFORT has demonstrated its capacity to maintain strong and prudent growth and has confirmed its annual targets of revenue growth of 10% and maintaining high profitability.

The confirmation of its targets is supported by sound confidence indicators:

• The substantial experience of the Group in steering the company through periods of market slowdown, thanks to its 90 years of existence, strong visibility (18 months) and significant variableness of costs (the cost structure comprises 89% of variable costs and 11% of fixed costs)

• Proven ability to adopt judicious strategic choices: balanced presence across the whole of France, with consolidation in areas of high potential, a full range of houses corresponding to all categories of homebuyers, financial capacity enabling the Group to continue following a policy of high-quality acquisitions, an association with Groupe Caisses d’Épargne generating important synergies.

• A business model that is totally different from property development, due to small stocks of land, low indebtedness, a large positive cash position and negative gearing.

This ability to fair a difficult economic situation is demonstrated, all the more, with the number of houses sold, at the end of June, equivalent to the number of sales for the equivalent period of the previous year.

These good earnings, the pursuit of a policy of external growth, possible takeover of sites of insolvent builders, will enable the MAISONS FRANCE CONFORT Group to bolster its activity in 2009, by fully benefiting from market share gains, which will inevitably follow this demand slowdown.

Next press release: 2nd quarter 2008 revenues, 7 August 2008 following the day’s trading.

About Maisons France Confort:

Founded in 1919, Maisons France Confort is the oldest builder of single-family homes in France and the second largest builder of single-family homes on individual plots. The Group operates in 19 regions in France, with 240 sales offices and 40 model homes.
Staff size at 31 December 2007: 1,220 people.

Maisons France Confort is listed on the NYSE Euronext - Compartment B.

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