Acquisition

GUS PLC
05 October 2004


Embargoed for release at 7 am 5 October 2004

5 October 2004

                                    GUS plc
                              Experian acquisition

GUS plc, the retail and business services group, today announces that Experian
has acquired QAS Limited, a leading supplier of address management software in
the UK. The purchase price for QAS, which has £16m of cash, is £106m and will be
funded from existing GUS resources.

QAS' software products enable organisations to maintain accurate and up-to-date
address information about their customers. When QAS' clients collect information
from a customer, such as house number and postcode, QAS' software is then able
to complete the customer's full and accurate address instantaneously. The
software works across many channels, including call centres, the Internet and
point of sale. QAS helps clients to reduce costs, improve customer service and
increase the accuracy of data on their customers.

QAS has 8,800 clients worldwide across all sectors, including financial
services, insurance, retail and government. About 90% of revenue comes from the
UK, where QAS is the clear market leader. It also has nascent international
operations in North America, Australia, the Netherlands, France and Singapore.
Sales in the year to June 2004 increased by 18% to £49m. QAS employs 370 people,
of whom 270 are in the UK.

QAS will benefit from continued growth in the UK market, especially in the
government sector, and from international expansion. In addition, there are
opportunities to cross-sell Experian products to QAS' client base in areas such
as marketing information, customer data integration, authentication and
marketing databases.

Commenting on the acquisition, John Saunders, Chief Executive Officer of
Experian International, said:

'The purchase of QAS is consistent with Experian's global strategy of acquiring
complementary businesses that provide new products, new data or entry into new
vertical or regional markets, while leveraging the core assets of Experian.
Working together, Experian and QAS will bring to the market sophisticated data
integrity solutions - further enhancing the quality of our clients' data about
their customers, both at the first point of contact and over time.'


Enquiries

GUS
David Tyler     Finance Director                    020 7495 0070
Fay Dodds       Director of Investor Relations

Finsbury
Rupert Younger                                      020 7251 3801
Rollo Head

GUS announcements are available on its website, www.gusplc.com.




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