Kingfisher lowers full year profit guidance
B&Q owner Kingfisher has lowered its full year profit guidance after its sales continue to be impacted by a difficult trading environment.
In a half-year sales update covering the six months to 31 July, the group said its statutory pre-tax profit declined by 33.1% to £317 million.
While there was like-for-like sales growth in the UK and Ireland of 1.7%, this was offset by a poorer performance in France and Poland where like-for-like sales declined by 3.8% and 10.9% respectively.
Meanwhile, total sales rose by 1.1% to £6.88 billion.
Thierry Garnier, chief executive of Kingfisher, said: “We saw good growth in our UK banners, with Screwfix gaining significant market share. At the same time, we faced strong comparatives and a weaker trading environment in Poland, while consumer confidence in France is at a 10-year low. Overall, demand for our core and ‘big-ticket’ categories was healthy, and we were pleased to see an improving volume trend in these categories through the half.”
The first half performance has led Kingfisher to update its full year adjusted pre-tax profit guidance to £590 million from a previous forecast of £634 million.
Garnier added: “Trading in the UK and Ireland continues to have positive momentum. However, to better reflect our performance in H1 and the trading environment in our markets, we have updated our profit guidance for this year and are proactively managing our operating costs accordingly. We remain very positive on the medium-to-long term outlook for home improvement growth in our markets, and confident in our ability to grow market share and deliver on our medium-term financial objectives.”
