Borders Group Inc. Names New Managing Director of Pacific Rim Operations.

Business Editors

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 5, 2002

Borders Group, Inc. has named John Campradt to the position of Managing Director, Borders Pacific Rim, effective today. Vin Altruda, president of Borders International Stores, made the announcement saying Campradt's appointment is a "key component of a focused plan to strengthen brand awareness and drive sales as we continue Pacific Rim expansion."

Campradt's most recent post was as Regional Manager for Woolworths Ltd. (Safeway Supermarkets). His duties included leading a group of 61 supermarkets in Metro and Western Victoria, Australia with a total team of 15,000 employees.

"Based on a 27-year retail career with three large companies in Australia, John Campradt brings high level strategic skills and specific expertise in operations, marketing, merchandising and category management," Altruda said. "John is a solid addition to the talented team at Borders. His strengths and experience are well aligned with our initiatives going forward and he will play a critical leadership role in helping achieve goals we've set for the Pacific Rim."

Campradt began his retail career at Coles Supermarkets in 1975 as a management trainee and became their youngest Store Manager. He was promoted to Area Manager for the Newcastle and Sydney areas of New South Wales before being promoted to State Deli Manager. In this role, his responsibilities included developing the deli department in terms of range, pricing strategy and advertising for approximately 95 stores in the state.

From there, Campradt was promoted to National Category Promotions Manager for chilled foods at the company's head office in Melbourne. This was a national role that covered 350 stores.

In 1994, he joined Franklins where he was responsible for rolling out the Big Fresh store concept in Queensland and under his leadership, five successful stores were opened. After implementing the integration of Big Fresh into the Franklin chain, Campradt was promoted to Area Manager. In 1998, he became National Business Manager for Non-Foods and implemented a new national category management structure, centralizing buying and merchandise decisions into one national location.

Following a strategic decision at Franklins to separate Big Fresh from the rest of the chain, Campradt became the Big Fresh Director. In this role, he was responsible for all 25 full range supermarkets that generated $936 million in sales and comprised 20% of the total company volume.

His last position at Franklins was as Southern Regional Director with direct responsibility for 74 supermarkets in Victoria and Southern Australia with annual sales in excess of $858 million.

"Borders represents an exciting opportunity that brings change, but also presents familiar challenges for me," Campradt said. "It is an extremely strong retail model that is clearly different from the supermarket trade, but is already benefiting from processes such as category management. I look forward to the opportunity to continue to bring the best of the Borders brand to Australia."

Campradt has begun an extensive orientation and training program and will take responsibility for Borders Pacific Rim operations in early October. He will be based in the Borders offices in Melbourne, Australia.

Borders Group, Inc., (NYSE: BGP) is a leading global retailer of books, music, video and other information and entertainment items with stores in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the commonwealth of Puerto Rico. A FORTUNE 500 company headquartered in Ann Arbor, Mich., Borders Group employs 32,000 employees worldwide and operates over 375 Borders domestic superstores, 23 international Borders stores, 36 Books etc. locations and approximately 815 Waldenbooks stores. Teamed with Amazon.com, the company also offers online shopping through www.borders.com.

More detailed information for journalists is available at www.bgimediacenter.com. Financial data is hosted on www.bordersgroupinc.com and information on Borders stores is available through www.bordersstores.com.