B&Q owner Kingfisher plans foreign market exit as France drags down sales November 21, 2018 B&Q owner Kingfisher today said it will exit Russia, Spain and Portugal to focus on its struggling French operations after a drop in like-for-like sales in the third quarter, sending shares down more than two per cent in early trading. Total sales rose 1.2 per cent to £3.04bn in the three months to the end [...]
B&Q owner’s profits slide 30 per cent following ‘weak’ business in France September 19, 2018 Kingfisher, the owner of B&Q, has seen its pre-tax profits plunge in the first half of this year as the company goes through organisational upheaval. The Figures Pre-tax profits fell 30.1% to £281m. The firm is undergoing a major reorganisation, which it says is being made more difficult by tough trade conditions. The firm also [...]
Kingfisher kicks off B&Q store closures as quarterly profits rise May 28, 2015 Kingfisher, Europe’s biggest home improvement retailer, said it has found buyers for a quarter of its stores earmarked for closure as it posted a rise in first quarter retail profit yesterday. Kingfisher plans to close 60 B&Q stores over the next two years in a major overhaul of the business revealed by new chief [...]
Kingfisher profits knocked by foreign exchange volatility, but share price is up nonetheless May 28, 2015 Currency volatility did Kingfisher no favours in the first quarter of 2015, but investors have not been put off. The figures Sales for the company, which owns B&Q, rose slightly by 0.8 per cent to £2.6m during the first three months of the year. Retail profit was also up by 1.4 per cent at £150m [...]
Veronique Laury: DIY is not dead, says chief exec of Kingfisher March 31, 2015 The chief executive of Kingfisher denied yesterday that the younger generation had fallen out of love with DIY, even as the home improvement chain announced the closure of one in six stores across the UK. Veronique Laury, who took the helm at Kingfisher in January, said: “I am not one of those who thinks DIY [...]
How Veronique Laury plans to create the Apple of DIY – Bottom Line March 31, 2015 If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”. Kingfisher’s new chief executive Veronique Laury dusted off her dictionary of quotations yesterday, picking this one from Henry Ford to make the tenuous link that just as Ford gave middle-class Americans a car, the DIY chain will give consumers “what they [...]
Kingfisher share price rises on plans to close 60 B&Q stores in UK and Ireland March 31, 2015 Kingfisher's profits fell last year despite an increase in sales, but plans to close 60 B&Q stores have sent shares up. The figures The DIY retailer, which owns B&Q among others, experienced a 2.9 per cent increase in sales last year, but its pre-tax profits fell 7.5 per cent to £675m. The figures, for the [...]
Reputation of Kingfisher boss Veronique Laury tarnished after collapse of Mr Bricolage deal March 30, 2015 Europe's biggest DIY group Kingfisher said yesterday that its €275m (£201m) bid for smaller French rival Mr Bricolage had collapsed after facing opposition from one the French rival’s major shareholders. Kingfisher first entered exclusive talks in April last year to buy 26.2 per cent of the share capital from the Tabur Family and 41.9 per [...]
Kingfisher share price jumps as it gives up on plans to buy French chain Mr Bricolage March 30, 2015 Looks like B&Q's owner has got itself into a (Screw)fix, after it revealed its plans to buy Mr Bricolage are about to fall through. In a statement to the stock market this morning, Kingfisher said its agreement to buy the French DIY chain, made almost exactly a year ago, was "made provision that it would [...]
Kingfisher sells off B&Q business in China for £140m December 22, 2014 Kingfisher has agreed to sell a controlling stake in its Chinese B&Q business to Wumei Holdings for £140m. The retail group had been looking for a “strategic partner” for its business in China in order to focus on the larger and more lucrative European market said newly installed Kingfisher chief Véronique Laury. B&Q first opened [...]