Trading Statement

GUS PLC
21 July 2004

21 July 2004

                                    GUS plc

                          First Quarter Trading Update

GUS plc, the retail and business services group, today issues its regular update
on trading in its main businesses.

John Peace, Group Chief Executive of GUS, said:

'With strong sales momentum in all of our businesses, GUS has made a good start
to the year. We remain confident of making continued progress in the rest of the
year, although we remain conscious of the challenges we face in some of our
markets.'

Argos Retail Group

% change in sales year-on-year
Three months to 30 June 2004                                              %
                                                                         
Argos           - total                                                  15
                - like-for-like                                           9

Four months to 30 June 2004
Homebase        - total                                                   5
                - like-for-like                                           3

Argos
Against a market background of continued strong retail sales, Argos grew its
turnover by 15% in the first quarter, again outperforming its market.
Like-for-like sales increased by 9% and new stores contributed 6%. Photography,
white goods and leisure categories performed particularly well. Gross margin was
in line with last year. Argos Direct, the delivery to home operation, grew by
30% and accounted for 25% of Argos' sales compared to 23% in the first quarter
last year.

The Autumn/Winter 2004 catalogue will be launched on 24 July. The main catalogue
will have 13,200 lines, up from 12,700 last year, an increase of 4%. The Argos
Extra catalogue, which will have 17,000 lines, will be available in about 150
stores (out of the Argos total of 561), compared with 75 stores at present.

Homebase
Homebase has made good progress in its initiatives to improve customer service,
ease of shopping and its home enhancement offer. These are starting to improve
the customers' shopping experience and drive growth.

Sales in the four months to 30 June 2004 rose by 5%, 3% on a like-for-like
basis. All major product areas again showed year-on-year growth. There were
strong performances from kitchens, bathrooms, tiling and air-conditioning
products. Gross margin was in line with last year. At 30 June 2004, Homebase had
281 stores, of which 76 had mezzanines.

Experian

% change in sales year-on-year for the three months to 30 June 2004
Continuing activities only       Total %    Total at constant exchange rates %

Experian North America                 0                                    12
Experian International                16                                    18
Global Experian                        7                                    15
Sales are for continuing activities only and exclude those activities sold in
the year to March 2004 and discontinuing UK contact centres

Experian again performed strongly in the quarter, with total worldwide sales
from continuing activities up by 15% at constant exchange rates. This builds on
four consecutive six-month periods of double-digit growth.

Experian North America
In dollars, Experian North America grew sales from continuing activities by 12%,
of which corporate acquisitions contributed 7%. The anticipated slowdown in the
mortgage refinancing market, which peaked in the comparable quarter last year,
reduced total Experian North America sales growth by 5% in the period.

Both Credit and Marketing showed good underlying increases. Credit benefited
from strength in Consumer Direct, on-line notification services and decision
solutions. In Marketing, database management and automotive continued to grow
well, with contract wins in a number of vertical markets, including travel and
entertainment. At FARES, Experian's real estate information associate, good
progress in the integration of the Transamerica tax and flood services
businesses helped to mitigate the impact of the slowing mortgage refinancing
market.

FACT Act
The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act was signed into law in December
2003 permanently extending the national standards for consumer credit reporting
in the US. Among other things, it requires national credit reporting agencies to
provide consumers, on request via a centralised source, one free credit report
annually. Experian continues to assess the likely impact of this on its
business. As previously stated, it will seek to recover from its clients any
significant increase in costs resulting from this legislation.

Experian International
Experian International, which accounted for 45% of Experian's worldwide revenue
last year, grew sales from continuing activities by 18% at constant exchange
rates in the first quarter. Of this, 7% came from the acquisition in September
2003 of DMS Atos (French outsourcing), where integration is proceeding well.

Credit and Marketing both showed good growth in the period. In Credit, a
double-digit increase was led by further gains in consumer credit information
and value-added products throughout Europe and business information services in
France. As previously announced, from the second quarter, one large card issuer
has moved its UK account processing in-house from Experian. Marketing benefited
from the ongoing strength of UK business-to-business sales and further growth in
mainland Europe. Outsourcing sales showed a mid-single digit sales increase,
excluding acquisitions and disposals.

Burberry
GUS has a 66% stake in Burberry. The following is an abridged version of
Burberry's Trading Update released on 19 July 2004.

% change in sales year-on-year for the three months to 30 June 2004
                                                                             %
Total                                                                        6
Total at constant exchange rates                                            14

Burberry grew sales in the first quarter by 14% at constant exchange rates.

Retail sales increased by 15% at constant exchange rates, driven by
contributions from newly opened stores, with modest gains at existing stores.
Wholesale revenue increased by 10% at constant exchange rates. For the Autumn/
Winter 2004 season, Burberry now anticipates approximately 10% wholesale sales
growth. Licensing revenues increased by 17% at constant exchange rates, driven
by strong sales gains at global product licensees.

South African Retailing
The partial IPO for Lewis Stores on the JSE Securities Exchange remains on track
for 2004, subject to market conditions. An update on current trading will be
provided as part of this process.

Future announcements
GUS will announce its interim results for the six months to 30 September 2004 on
18 November 2004. Its First Half Trading Update will now be on 14 October 2004.

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. There will be a
conference call to discuss this update at 3pm today, with a recording available
later on the GUS website.

Certain statements made in this Trading Update are forward-looking statements.
Such statements are based on current expectations and are subject to a number of
risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially
from any expected future results in forward-looking statements.










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