Statement re Press Comment

10 March 2009

                                FIRSTGROUP PLC                                 

                     STATEMENT RE: FOREIGN EXCHANGE POLICY                     

In response to recent market rumour and press speculation, FirstGroup plc
reconfirms that it has an established foreign exchange policy in place to
manage the impact of currency fluctuations on adjusted post tax earnings and
shareholders funds. In particular, US Dollar investments have been funded by US
Dollar debt which is serviced by US Dollar cashflows.

While the impact of weakening Sterling increases the Group's interest charge
payments this is offset by translation gains of US Dollar earnings from our
large North American businesses. When combined with Dollar denominated fuel
purchases for the UK businesses, overall Dollar costs and earnings are broadly
matched at the EPS level.

Furthermore the Group has recently agreed with its relationship banks a single
technical amendment to its bank facilities. This amendment is to ensure
consistency for all currency translation for covenant testing purposes, and
requires all such computations to use an average rate of exchange. In
particular this will mitigate currency volatility affecting the covenant
relating to net debt and EBITDA. Adequate headroom exists under the covenant.

The Group will be announcing a Q4 trading update before the end of March 2009.

Notes to Editors:

As a result of the technical amendment, under the company's Net Debt: EBITDA
bank covenant, for the purposes of calculating net debt, foreign currencies are
translated into sterling at an average rate over the preceding twelve months;
the same translation rate is used in calculating EBITDA over the preceding
twelve months.