KINGS NIGHTCLUB EASTBOURNE

Our popular and well-established brands and products provide a wide variety of entertaining experiences to suit different ages, tastes and lifestyles. Whether you want to eat, drink, party, or dance late into the night, there's always something happening.

From Liquid's high-energy club scene and the amazing world experience of Oceana to the local atmosphere of Life, there's always a perfect choice to suit our customers' mood and the time of day.

The continuing evolution of our venues will provide flexible spaces to accommodate a suite of lifestyle products, developed to meet our customers' evolving aspirations for the best in entertainment and customer service.

Luminar plc, which holds its AGM today at 1pm, announces its first Interim Management Statement in respect of the period from 2 March 2007 to 20 July 2007.

As set out in the preliminary results which were issued on 17 May 2007, the Board is progressing well in restructuring the business and is successfully implementing its stated strategy. The focus on the execution of operational and financial KPIs continues to drive targeted returns and profitability.

Trading is in line with the Board’s expectations. Sales have improved over the period and year on year, driven by successful promotional activities to enhance footfall, and the softer comparatives in the prior year. Like-for-like sales for the 19 weeks to 12 July 2007 were up 12.9% for branded dancing. The strong sales performance has continued into the current week ended 19 July 2007. Despite the promotional investments made, gross margins have remained solid during the period.

Whilst it is too early to discern any real trends, the Board is pleased to report minimal impact on sales and profitability from the smoking ban which was introduced in England on 1 July 2007.

The Group’s 2007/08 development programme is progressing well with three new branded openings and 3 refurbishments since the year end and the Group is on track to complete our full year development plan target.

Since the year end, the Group has acquired one unit, disposed of one unit and surrendered one unit back to the landlord. This brings the portfolio to 117 units excluding units in development and sub-let units.

The share buy-back programme has continued with 1,340,062 shares being purchased bringing the total amount returned to shareholders via this programme to £33.0m.

The process of reorganising the balance sheet, which will enable the continuation of our share buy-back programme, is well underway, with Court dates scheduled for August and October. Shareholder approval will be sought for the Company's proposals and the Board anticipate completing this exercise during the current financial year.

There have been no other significant changes in the position of the Group over the period since the publication of its report and accounts for the year ended 1 March 2007.

Overall the Board is pleased with the trading of the Group since the year end and remains confident in the Group’s future prospects.

20 July 2007

Enquiries:

Luminar plc
Stephen Thomas,
Chief Executive
Tel: 0207 3990 2960 (today)

Nick Beighton,
Finance Director
Tel: 01908 544135 (thereafter)

College Hill
Matthew Smallwood
Tel: 020 7457 2020

BRANDS