Hamburg/Frankfurt am Main, 4 December 2003. Hawesko Holding AG (HAWG.DE, HAW GR, DE0006042708) registered good business development in October, the first month of the current fourth quarter, said Chief Financial Officer Sven Ohlzen at an investor conference in Frankfurt. He was commenting on the beginning of the Advent season, which is decisive for full-year sales and earnings. The good development had weakened a bit in November and led to monthly sales several percentage points under the same month in the previous year. The company is nevertheless confident, he said, to have a good end spurt after this respite. "Every year we see that customers buy later for the holiday season," he said. "We have taken this into account this year in our November mailing schedule, and hope for this reason to achieve better efficiency of our advertising spend."

Hawesko Holding AG is a leading seller of premium wines and champagnes. Through its three distribution channels - mail order/e-commerce (particularly Hanseatisches Wein- und Sekt-Kontor), specialist wine retail (Jacques' Wein-Depot) and wholesale (Wein Wolf and CWD Champagner- und Wein-Distributionsgesellschaft) - the Group achieved sales of  267 million euros in fiscal year 2002 and employed 550 staff members.

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