Q3 Trading Update

Quarto Group Inc
19 October 2005





                             THE QUARTO GROUP, INC

                               Q3 Trading Update

Management's unaudited trading results for the quarter ended September 30, 2005,
and for the nine- and twelve-month periods ending on the same date, excluding
the amortization of intangibles and exceptional items, against the prior period
comparatives, and prepared under IFRS, are as follows:


                           Q3                9 Months        Trailing 12 Months
                      2005       2004      2005      2004      2005       2004
                      £000       £000      £000      £000      £000       £000

Revenue             28,397     25,657    66,595    56,706    89,639     76,433
                    --------   ------   -------   -------   -------    -------
Gross profit         9,106      8,531    22,582    19,205    30,637     26,161
Overheads           (6,463)    (6,097)  (17,772)  (14,800)  (22,716)   (19,054)
                    --------   ------   -------   -------   -------    -------
Operating
profit               2,643      2,434     4,810     4,405     7,921      7,107
                    --------   ------   -------   -------   -------    -------
EBITDA*              3,355      3,082     6,664     6,242     9,834      9,262
                    --------   ------   -------   -------   -------    -------

* earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, exceptional
items, and corporate expenses not attributable to operations

'The third quarter trading results leave us slightly behind where we expected to
be for the year to date but, as the trailing 12 months' operating results show,
comfortably ahead overall. The principal impact has come from poor retail
trading in the UK, and it isn't clear whether this will pick up as we head into
the all-important final quarter of the year,' commented Laurence F Orbach,
chairman and chief executive officer of Quarto. 'Fortunately, much of our
business is in international co-edition publishing, where there is good forward
visibility. It is very encouraging to report that 1001 Albums You Must Hear
Before you Die, the latest title in our hugely successful 1001 series, has
reprinted in several major markets, even before going on sale.

'The UK market (which accounts for approximately one-sixth of Group turnover) is
particularly difficult, and economic uncertainties persist elsewhere, but we
have sound reasons to believe that 2006 will be a solid year of growth for
Quarto. The changes in our US publishing businesses that we have implemented
during this year will be bedded in; the investment we have been making in
improving their title ranges will translate into sales; the strong new
co-edition lists appearing this fall will feed through into reprints and
foreign-language editions; and cyclical factors will all favour us, subject, of
course, to currency and interest rate movements.'

Notes for Editors:

Quarto is an international book publisher with two principal strands of
activity: it publishes, under imprints owned by the Group, books and art prints
in the US, the UK, and Australia; and it creates books that are licensed to
other publishers for publication under their own imprints in many languages
around the world.

2004 was Quarto's sixth successive year of increase in underlying EPS. Quarto
made four acquisitions in the second half of 2004 and the first half of 2005: in
the USA, the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Enquiries:

The Quarto Group, Inc.                                           020-7700 9000
Laurence Orbach (Chairman & CEO)
Mick Mousley (Finance Director)

Bankside Consultants Limited
Charles Ponsonby                                                 020-7367 8851




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