Brexit not impacting home improvement retailer Kingfisher

Kingfisher, the largest home improvement retailer in Europe and the owner of B&Q, has reported results that suggest that Brexit has not impacted its business. The group announced that sales from stores open for over a year increased by 3% in the 3 months leading to 31 July, with total sales rising by 8.4% to £3bn.

Kingfisher, Europe’s largest home improvement retailer and the owner of B&Q, said it had seen no impact yet from the Brexit vote on its business, with sales up in the last three months.

Véronique Laury, the chief executive of the company, which trades as B&Q and Screwfix in Britain and Castorama and Brico Depot in France, said the referendum had created an uncertain economic outlook.

But she noted: “There has been no clear evidence of an impact on demand so far on our businesses.”

Industry data published last week showed British retail spending bounced back in July as sales promotions and good weather outweighed concerns that the vote to leave the EU would deal an immediate hit to the economy.

Kingfisher said group sales at stores open for more than a year rose 3% in the three months to 31 July, having been up 3.6% in the first quarter. Total sales rose 8.4% to £3bn.

Like-for-like sales in Britain and Ireland were up 7.2%, with B&Q up 5.6% and Screwfix up 13.3%.

In France, underlying sales fell 3.2%, hurt by widespread industrial action and exceptionally wet weather.

Véronique Laury. Photograph: Kingfisher/PA

Market conditions in Poland remained supportive with like-for-like sales up 7.3%.

In January Laury announced a strategy to boost Kingfisher’s annual profit by £500m from 2021 that will cost £800m over five years to deliver. The plan involves unifying the product offer across the business, improving its online offering and cutting costs.

It also plans to return £600m to shareholders over the next three years through share buybacks. It has so far returned £150m.

For 2016-17, analysts are on average forecasting an underlying pretax profit of £692m, compared with £686m in 2015-16.