First day of dealings

Conviviality Retail PLC

("Conviviality", the "Group", or the "Company")

First day of dealings

Conviviality, one of the UK's largest franchised off-licence chains, is pleased to announce that Admission and dealings in its Ordinary Shares commence at 08:00am today on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange. Following Admission, dealings will commence under the TIDM identifier CVR.

Summary

·; Conviviality has placed through a Vendor Placing and Placing, a total of 64,038,720 Ordinary Shares with institutional investors at a Placing Price of £1 per share raising £64m (gross) for the Company

·; The proceeds of the Placings will be used to eliminate debt, buy out ECI Partners and other shareholders and provide working capital to expand the business

·; The market capitalisation of Conviviality on Admission at the Placing Price is £66.7m

·; The number of Ordinary Shares in issue on Admission is 66,700,000

·; The management team, led by Diana Hunter, an experienced retailer previously at Waitrose and Sainsbury's, is implementing a strategy which the Directors believe will drive Franchisee engagement and growth over the next three years. The Directors expect to extend reach into new locations, penetrate further into the South of England, increase the Group's convenience offering and further increase the focus on its wine offering

Diana Hunter, Chief Executive, said:

"We are delighted to be starting life as a public company today and welcome all of our new shareholders to the Company.

"We have an exciting future ahead of us with our new debt free capital structure, an incentivisation plan that aligns our 461 franchisees with management and our shareholders and capital to expand our footprint of stores from our heartland in the North West."

31 July 2013

The Company's Admission Document can be found at www.convivialityretail.co.uk

Enquiries

Introduction

Conviviality owns one of the UK's largest franchised off-licence and convenience chains with 611 stores.

The Group is a buying, marketing and logistics business offering a full support package to its 461 Franchisees. Conviviality's Franchisees currently operate under six fascias which include Bargain Booze and Bargain Booze Select Convenience.

Information on Conviviality

The Bargain Booze business was founded in 1981 from a single store in Sandbach, Cheshire and has evolved into a chain of 611 off-licence and convenience stores.

The stores are run by 461 Franchisees across the UK, with a particular area of strength being the North West of England. The Company operates two distribution centres. The Crewe centre is primarily used for alcohol and soft drinks and the Newcastle-under-Lyme centre is primarily used for tobacco and grocery.

The Company currently operates under the following six fascias;

- Bargain Booze (198 stores)

Operating a high alcohol offering and volume led business.

- Bargain Booze Plus (246 stores)

Same licensed led offering as a Bargain Booze but also a small convenience range.

- Bargain Booze Select Convenience and Select Convenience (122 stores)

A convenience offering, powered by the Bargain Booze licensed range.

- Thorougoods and Thorougoods Select Convenience (45 stores)

A convenience, tobacco and news driven format with a good alcohol range.

The Group has an established market presence and has had a stable financial track record over a number of years with revenues in the year ended 30 April 2013 of £372 million and Adjusted EBITDA of £12.5 million.

Market

The UK convenience market is forecast to grow by £8.6 billion in the five years to 2016, with the total market size forecast to reach £42.2 billion. Retail sales of in-home alcoholic drinks in the UK is also estimated to grow and is forecast to reach total sales of over £17 billion by 2017.

The Directors believe that as an off-licence led retailer the Group can capitalise on the growth of the convenience sector, and that its existing infrastructure has the capacity to serve significantly more stores than it currently does.

The Franchise model and the Franchisee

Conviviality operates a franchise model with minimal direct exposure to property costs and store overheads. The Group is focused on recruiting and retaining high quality Franchisees, who enter into a franchise agreement that underpins and defines the trading relationship between the Franchisee and the Group. For current or potential Franchisees, operating a Conviviality franchise provides a number of benefits, including, inter alia, (a) pricing benefits from the Group's buying power, (b) strong back office support on promotions, pricing and marketing, (c) a highly efficient distribution network which benefits the Franchisee by maximising range availability and (d) an extensive product range for Franchisees.

Franchisee incentive plan

In order to drive Franchisee engagement and incentivise Franchisees to perform and hit targets that are designed to benefit the Group as a whole, a Franchisee Incentive Plan has been developed that involves

Franchisees being awarded shares in Conviviality, subject to the discretion of the Board and satisfaction of certain performance targets.

Strategy

The management team, now led by Diana Hunter, an experienced retailer previously at Waitrose and

Sainsbury's, is implementing a strategy which the Directors believe will drive Franchisee engagement and growth over the next three years. The Directors expect to extend reach into new locations, penetrate further into the South of England, increase the Group's convenience offering and further increase the focus on its wine offering.

Details of the Board upon Admission are set out below:

Roger Pedder (aged 72) - Non-Executive Chairman

Roger Pedder is an experienced retail industry operator. He has previously been Chairman of C&J Clark Ltd (Clarks Shoes) and under his stewardship the company increased sales and operating profit from £655 million and £27.6 million in 1993/1994 to £954 million and £94.2 million in 2005/2006. Previous to this, Roger founded Pet City, which was sold to Petsmart of America in 1996 and has served as Chairman of Robert Dyas Ltd and Non Executive Director of Theo Fennell PLC.

Currently Roger is Chairman or Non-Executive Director of several privately and family owned businesses and serves as President of the European Family Business Association and was made Hon Doctor of Laws in 2012 by the University of Bath.

Diana Hunter (aged 45) - Chief Executive Officer

Prior to joining Conviviality, Diana worked for Waitrose within the John Lewis Partnership for nine years in various roles including Head of Merchandising, Director of Store Development and latterly as Convenience Director. She was charged with leading the Waitrose drive into the Convenience market through the roll out of the 'Little Waitrose' format to over 50 sites.

Diana began her career at Sainsbury's where over 13 years she held numerous senior roles including leading investment programmes and heading the format development of Sainsbury's.

Peter Hodgson (aged 62) - Chief Financial Officer

Peter joined Bargain Booze Limited in 1998 as the Group's financial controller. He has since been responsible for introducing new financial and reporting systems and was also involved in the design and implementation of the logistics systems. He was also responsible for updating the Group's IT systems, and managing the requirements of the reporting methods.

Keith Webb (aged 56) - Franchise Director

Keith is a highly experienced retail professional having worked with major Wholesalers, Discounters and Convenience operators during a 30 year career. Prior to joining Conviviality, Keith was one of three directors responsible for the integration of the Jackson's and Bell's convenience businesses into the Sainsbury's Convenience business.

David Adams (aged 58) - Non-Executive Director

David is an experienced PLC director who has served in both executive and non-executive capacities in the retail industry. David's past roles include Finance Director and Deputy CEO at House of Fraser, Chairman of Jessops Plc and Moss Bros Plc and Non Executive Director at HMV. David has also previously been the finance director at Texas Homecare, Top Shop and Dorothy Perkins.

David is currently Chairman of Musto, and of Park Cameras, and is a Non-Executive Director of Halfords plc and of the British Retail Consortium (Trading) Ltd.