Trading Statement

Embargoed until 7am on Thursday 27 March 2008

                                FIRSTGROUP PLC                                 

                           PRE-CLOSE TRADING UPDATE                            

FirstGroup ("the Group") reports on trading for the year to 31 March 2008 ahead
of a series of pre-close meetings to be held with analysts this week.

The Group has continued to deliver a strong trading performance throughout the
second half of the year and we expect to announce full year results in line
with management expectations.

All operating divisions of FirstGroup America are performing in line with
management expectations. In North America we have made excellent progress with
the integration of Laidlaw with FirstGroup America operations. We are pleased
to be making good progress on the extraction of substantial synergies and are
on track to achieve our synergy target of $100m per annum. A key focus this
year has been to ensure that our record of high customer retention continues.
Although we are only part way through the current school bus bidding season, we
are pleased with the progress made in winning and retaining key business.

In our UK Bus business we continue to deliver strong passenger revenue growth
of 5%. Improved operating performance and reliability together with focused
management of efficiencies and productivity has led to a further increase of
over 1% in the operating margin this year. We believe we are on course to
deliver further margin enhancement next year.

Strong passenger revenue trends continue to be a feature of the UK railway
industry. The Group's rail division has performed strongly with full year
passenger revenue growth in excess of 10%. We have committed to a programme of
investment to address the performance issues at First Great Western (FGW) and
we are on course to achieve the performance improvements we have agreed with
the Department for Transport. We are pleased to report a continued strong
performance of over 90% punctuality in our three other rail franchises. During
the year we progressed our revenue protection programme for First Capital
Connect and we have now almost completed the programme of automatic ticket gate
installation at key stations across the network. Similarly, we have commenced
work to install ticket gates on further FGW platforms at London Paddington.

The Board remains confident of the prospects for the Group in all of the
markets in which it operates and is committed to annual dividend growth of 10%
for at least three years. The Group will announce preliminary results for the
year ended 31 March 2008 on Wednesday 14 May 2008.

Contacts:

Nick Chevis, Group Finance Director

Rachael Borthwick, Group Corporate Communications Director

Tel: [phone]