Essanelle Hair Group publishes figures for H1 2008
Sales up by 6.1%
Performance above the industry average
23 new salons opened

Düsseldorf, 19 August 2008
Essanelle Hair Group AG looks back on a successful first half of 2008. The successful performance of the first quarter continued, with both sales and earnings picking up. Sales increased by 6.1% from EUR 59.9 million in H1 2007 to EUR 63.6 million. The company thus reached its targets and clearly outperformed its peers.

"We clearly improved our key figures in the first six months of the year and are fully in line with our projections. In the coming months, we will be challenged to further improve our brand concepts and our structure. In this process, we primarily intend to revitalise and upgrade our core brand, essanelle Ihr Friseur," said Achim Mansen, CEO of Essanelle Hair Group AG.

The individual salon concepts also delivered a positive performance. Top Ten and HairExpress showed the highest percentage growth of all salon concepts. While sales of the Top Ten brand increased by 65.6% to EUR 2.8 million (previous year: EUR 1.7 million), HairExpress reported a 25.4% increase in sales to EUR 12.8 million (previous year: EUR 10.2 million). Sales of the SuperCut brand rose from EUR 9.6 million in H1 2007 to EUR 10.1 million in the first six months of 2008, which represents an increase of 6.2%. essanelle Ihr Friseur and JT by essanelle reported a moderate decline.

Sales revenues of essanelle Ihr Friseur decreased from EUR 33.8 million to EUR 32.9 million, while JT by essanelle generated EUR 2.1 million in sales, compared to EUR 2.2 million in the first six months of 2007. The Beauty Hair Shops, which specialise in the sale of salon products, reported a 17.1% increase in sales to EUR 2.8 million (previous year: EUR 2.4 million).

Continued earnings growth

Earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were up 3.3% on the previous year to EUR 5.3 million. Earnings before taxes (EBT) amounted to EUR 2.5 million in H1 2008, compared to EUR 2.4 million in H1 2007 (+4.2%). Earnings per share reached EUR 0.33, up from EUR 0.32 in the previous year.

"In spite of the weaker economy, we believe that we will be able to reach our sales and earnings targets and achieve a 5-10% increase in sales as well as disproportionate earnings growth. A deviation from our targets is expected only in case of a sharp slowdown in consumer demand," said Achim Mansen.

Further figures and details will be published in the Interim Report 2/2008 on August 29, 2008.

Contakt:
Haubrok Investor Relations
Michael Müller, Linh Chung,
++49-211-30 12 61 06
M.Mueller@haubrok.de