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INDEPENDENT LIMITED ASSURANCE REPORT
ON THE CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY REPORT FOR 2007
Introduction
1. We have performed an independent limited assurance engagement of the accompanying Corporate Responsibility Report for 2007 ("CR Report 2007") of Sonae Sierra, S.G.P.S., S.A. ("Sonae Sierra" or "the Company"), with respect to the following aspects (hereafter jointly referred as the "subject matter"):
- Whether the CR Report 2007, including required contents and selected performance
indicators, complies with the 2006 v3.0 version of the Global Reporting Initiative Guidelines ("GRI Guidelines") in accordance with the B+ level of application, as stated by the Company;
- Whether:
- remaining disclosed performance indicators, included in "Key facts as at 3l st December 2007" (page 3), "Table 2: Key Facts at 31/12/07 by country" (page 5), and in "KPI" inserted throughout the Report, based on criteria established by the Company, as attached to the referred indicators, and
- Sonae Sierra’s assertions regarding the reported progress against 2007 corporate responsibility targets, included in "Summary of performance against 2007 CR targets" chart (page 2) in accordance with “Annex 2 - Review of progress against targets 2007” are fairly presented.
Responsibilities
2. Sonae Sierra’s Board of Directors is responsible for preparing the CR Report 2007, as well as defining, implementing and maintaining adequate processes, procedures, internal control systems and criteria for collecting, processing and validating the information contained therein.
Our responsibility is to independently express our limited assurance conclusion on the subject matter referred to above, based on our evidence-gathering procedures referred to below.
Scope
3. We conducted our limited assurance engagement in accordance with the International Standard on Assurance Engagements 3000 (Revised) ("ISAE 3000"), Assurance Engagements other than Audit or Reviews of Historical Financial Information, issued by the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board.
4. This standard requires that we plan and perform our evidence—gathering procedures and apply assurance skills and techniques, in order to fully understand the subject matter and to obtain, considering the circumstances, sufficient appropriate evidence to base our conclusions. In a limited assurance engagement, the evidence-gathering procedures, consists primarily to inquiries of company personnel and carrying out analytical procedures, including tests on a sample basis. Therefore, a limited assurance engagement is substantially less in scope than a reasonable assurance engagement, and consequently, provides less assurance.
5. Our evidence-gathering procedures included the following work:
- Interviewing those responsible in Sonae Sierra for the information reported;
- Gathering and analyzing, on a sample basis, the evidence supporting the information reported;
- Reviewing procedures, criteria and systems in place to collect, authorize, accumulate and validate the quantitative 2007 data and to monitor and measure progress against targets;
- Testing, on a sample basis, computation that supported the quantitative 2007 data and target progress;
- Reviewing the compliance and consistency of indicators and contents reported with the GRI Guidelines requirements (structure, criteria and principles) applicable to level B+; and
- Reviewing consistency of the information included within the CR Report 2007 and that substantially agrees with the Sonae Sierra’s Consolidated Report and Accounts 2007.
Conclusion
6. Based on our work described in this Report, nothing has come to our attention that causes us to believe that:
- Sonae Sierra’s statement that the CR Report 2007, including required contents and selected performance indicators, which was prepared in accordance with level B+ of the GRI Guidelines is not, in all material respects, fairly stated;
- The remaining disclosed performance indicators included in “Key facts as at 3lst December 2007" (page 3), "Table 2: Key Facts at 31/12/07 by country" (page 5), and in "KPI" inserted throughout the Report, based on criteria established by the Company, as attached to the referred indicators, and Sonae Sierra’s assertions regarding the reported progress against 2007 corporate responsibility targets, included in "Summary of performance against 2007 CR targets" chart (page 2) in accordance with "Annex 2 - Review of progress against targets 2007", are not, in all material respects, fairly presented.
Lisbon, 17 March 2008
DELOITTE & ASSOCIADOS, SROC S.A.
Represented by João Carlos Frade
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