Kirkel – 08.03.2006. Pascal Warnking (35) will be the new Management Board member of Praktiker responsible for Category Management and Marketing. With this decision the Supervisory Board of Praktiker Bau- und Heimwerkermärkte Holding AG at its meeting held on 7 March 2006 paved the way for the next generation at the top of this key function. Effective 1 July 2006 Warnking, who already held the position of Head of the Marketing Division, will succeed Karlheinz Kockmann (61) who then is resigning from the five-member Board of Management on the grounds of age.

Pascal Warnking, born on 25 November 1970 in Saarbrücken, is a graduate in business administration. He studied at the Georgetown University in Washington D.C., at the Università Commerciale L. Bocconi in Mailand und at the university of Saarland (Saarbruecken), where he completed his studies in business administration in autumn 1996. He then started his professional career with Praktiker, where he learned the DIY business from scratch, first in sales. In 1997 he became assistant to the Head of Sales, then to the CEO. In 1998 Warnking changed to the Purchasing Department starting as a head of department and, from January 2000, as division manager in charge advertising at Praktiker. In addition, he was actively involved in the rollout of a central category management including implementation and drafting of new assortment strategies. At the top of the Marketing Division, which he has managed since July 2001, Warnking from 2002 shaped the price-aggressive positioning of Praktiker among its competitors. Since 2005, he also has been the project manager responsible for the development, testing and rollout of a new, customer-oriented store concept (easy-to-stop), among other functions.