Thank you, Luc, and hello everyone.

I’d like to add to your remarks that it’s also a great day for the team that works on promoting Transcontinental as a newspaper printer in the United States. The official signing of the contract is the last stage in a long process that required a lot of effort and many, many hours of work. So I’d like to thank Ted Markle, vice president, business development for the Newspaper Group, for his leadership, and his team, represented here by Pierre Manseau and Pierre Deslongchamps. Thank you also to Christine Desaulniers, vice president, legal affairs and corporate secretary, who for months made that thick document called a contract her favourite bedside reading!

If today we are in a position to take this first major step into the United States, it’s because Canadian newspaper publishers have shown vision and courage by entrusting us with their newspapers for the past several years, allowing us to perfect our approach. I’m thinking of Philip Crawley, publisher and CEO of The Globe and Mail, and his team at the Globe which we print in its main markets in Canada, and Guy Crevier, president of Gesca and president and publisher of La Presse, which we’ve been printing since October 2003 in an ultramodern plant built for that purpose in Montreal. I’d like to thank them both for their confidence in us and their support.

Last year, at our plant in Toronto, we started to print The New York Times for the Ontario and Upstate New York markets. Our association with this prestigious customer helped us gain immediate visibility in the United States. Today, for our first major incursion into the United States itself, we are working with another prestigious name, Hearst Corporation, which enjoys unique credibility and visibility on the international scene. To give you an idea, Hearst publishes some 200 magazines around the world, including Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and O, The Oprah Magazine, and owns 29 television stations which reach a combined 18% of U.S. viewers.

Luc Desjardins and Ted Markle, Vice President, Business Development, Newspaper Group.

We are also working with a major newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, which is part of the Hearst portfolio of 12 U.S. daily newspapers, including the Houston Chronicle and the Albany Times Union. The San Francisco Chronicle’s dynamic management team is headed by its publisher, Frank Vega. Believe me, we’re partnering with winners!

As Luc just said, we now have Hearst Corporation and the San Francisco Chronicle as business partners. I have to tell you that George Irish, president of Hearst Newspapers, Frank Vega and our team have been meeting intensively for quite some time now. First, to get to know each other, and in that area Transcontinental’s great business reputation in North America was an invaluable asset. But also to talk about our vision for the future of dailies and the steps they must take to meet the new needs of readers and advertisers.

George and Frank, although you couldn’t join us today, I salute your openness and your innovative spirit, and thank you for your confidence in Transcontinental and its people. We won’t simply be providing a service to the San Francisco Chronicle, we’ll be a business partner who is integrated into your value chain, contributing to the development of your brand and of your product.

This leads me to Transcontinental’s positioning in relation to newspaper printing.

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Transcontinental is the leading independent newspaper printer in Canada, with annual revenues of over 250 million dollars. We have a network of 12 plants that extends from St. John’s, in Newfoundland, to Vancouver. We print about 200 newspapers, including some 20 dailies.

In our strategic planning, we identified newspaper printing as a key segment for the future. Here’s why.

The daily paper is going throught rapid change, everywhere in the world. Statistics that speak of a declining circulation are misleading. Indeed, the survey by NADbank last month noted that the readership for daily papers has increased in Canada over the past year. As usual in periods of fast transformation, there will be winners and losers. Our strategy is to join forces with the innovators who have decided to be winners. In fact, our business model has been custom-tailored to appeal to them.

We make it possible for publishers to focus on their core function, which is to promote their brand by creating top-quality content, appealing design and making product innovation a priority. We also give them access to the latest technologies so they can attract new generations of readers and advertisers. I’m thinking specifically here of better paper, more and higher quality color reproduction, and targeted distribution that permits sophisticated personalization.

Not only does our model make use of the latest technology, it also makes use of the latest innovations in human resources. Our model is in fact designed specifically for the young generation looking for a work environment that makes them feel valued, gives them a great deal of autonomy, encourages them to be creative and uses their talent. There is no hierarchy and the goal of each employee, whom we call “associates,” is to be able to carry out every job in the production process from start to finish. As a team, they are responsible for managing their printing plant in line with Transcontinental’s values. This approach has resulted in a flexible and efficient production method that we have been perfecting for several years. It completely changes the way a company is managed and developed.

We perfected this model in Canada first. We’re now ready to implement it in the United States. Indeed, we’re currently in talks with the publishers of several U.S. dailies. I can tell you that our model has been very well received everywhere. So we’re certain that today’s announcement will help our growth in the United States, given the prestige of Hearst Corporation and the San Francisco Chronicle.

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Now let’s move on to the financial aspects of the agreement and what comes next.

To print about 400,000 copies a day of the San Francisco Chronicle, Transcontinental will build a brand new plant in the San Francisco Bay Area. This will represent an investment of more than 200 million U.S. dollars. We’ll also be printing other products at the plant.

We will finance the project from our own significant cash flow from operations, which totals about 300 million dollars a year, and through our existing credit facilities. We have already identified potential locations and work on the plant should start in the 2007. The first official issue of the Chronicle printed by Transcontinental will come off the presses in the spring of 2009.

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To conclude, I’d like to say again that at Transcontinental, we believe that daily papers have a strong future. We also believe that our production model allows publishers to differentiate themselves and strengthen their position in their markets. We’ve proved ourselves in the past and I can assure our new partners that they’ve made the right choice to ensure that the San Francisco Chronicle remains the dominant daily newspaper in the Bay Area for generations to come.

Thank you for your attention.