Howden Joinery Group plc (the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has reached agreement with the Trustees of its defined benefit pension scheme in relation to the schedule of payments required to fund the scheme deficit. It is agreed that it will make annual deficit contributions of £30m per annum for up to five years until June 2023. The Company's annual deficit contribution was previously £35m per annum.

The funding position will be monitored on an ongoing basis, and deficit contributions will be suspended should the scheme's funding position improve to at least 100 percent of the scheme's funding basis for two consecutive months and resumed if the funding position subsequently falls back below 100 percent.

The agreement will result in a contribution to the pension deficit in the current financial year ending 29 December 2018 of £27.5m due to an interim bridging deficit contribution of £25m being paid during the year to June 2018.

This agreement follows the triennial actuarial valuation of the scheme as at 5 April 2017.

Enquiries:

Investors/analysts:

Paul Sharma
Head of Investor Relations + 44 (0) 20 7535 1164/+44 (0) 7585 992943