STOCKMANN SOLD NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE SU

STOCKMANN plc PRESS RELEASE May 6, 2003, 10.00 a.m.

STOCKMANN SOLD NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION BUSINESS OPERATIONS TO
SUOMALAINEN KIRJAKAUPPA

Stockmann has today sold the newspaper and magazine subscription business
operations carried on by the Academic Bookstore to Suomalainen Kirjakauppa
effective June 1, 2003. Net sales of the business in 2002 amounted to
nearly EUR 13 million.

Stockmann plc has today, May 6, 2003, sold the newspaper and magazine
subscription business operations carried on by the Academic Bookstore to
Suomalainen Kirjakauppa Oy. The business will be transferred to the new
owner as from June 1, 2003. The transaction is in line with the Stockmann
Group’s strategy to concentrate on sales to private consumers while the
customers of the newspaper and magazine subscription business are mainly
comprised of companies and public sector institutions. The Academic
Bookstore will continue operations as the newspaper and magazine
subscription agency for Stockmann’s loyal customers and as the supplier of
books ordered by companies and public sector institutions.

The staff of the newspaper and magazine subscription business, amounting
to 14 people, will be taken over by Suomalainen Kirjakauppa.

In 2002, the net sales of the newspaper and magazine subscription business
of the Academic Bookstore amounted to nearly EUR 13 million. The business
is highly seasonal and the discontinuance will not affect the Stockmann
Group’s sales figures until in the first months of 2004. The transaction
does not have an effect on Stockmann’s second-quarter and full-year
earnings estimates for 2003 presented in the Group’s Interim Report on
April 24, 2003.

For more details, please contact:
Pekka Vähähyyppä, CFO, tel. +358 9 121 3351
Karl Stockmann, director of the department stores in Finland,
tel. +358 9 121 5802

STOCKMANN plc

Hannu Penttilä
CEO

DISTRIBUTION
Helsinki Exchanges
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