 reported a disappointing set of quarterly sales on Thursday. The business, which owns B&Q and Screwfix){kind=link}
B&Q owner Kingfisher (LON:KGF) reported a disappointing set of quarterly sales on Thursday.
The business, which owns B&Q and Screwfix in Britain and Castorama and Brico Depot in France, said the poor sales were mainly due to a slowdown at B&Q, poor sales in France and the disruption from restructuring plans.
Sales at B&Q were down 8 percent in the second quarter. Shares in the group fell by 4 percent in early trading, sending the group to the bottom of the FTSE 100.
The company is amidst a £800 million overhaul. The company hopes the transformations will lead to £500 million more in profit each year by 2021. Until then, Kingfisher has said the changes are causing “business disruption”.
Chief executive Veronique Laury said there was a “significant amount of change” planned for the rest of 2017.
“Q2 has broadly followed a similar course to Q1 although B&Q’s performance was impacted by seasonal swings across Q1 and Q2. We have also continued to experience some disruption across the businesses, although on an improving trend,” she said.
“Having been very aware that this year would be challenging given the step up in transformation activity, we already have self-help plans in place to support our overall Year 2 performance, though we remain cautious on the H2 outlook for the UK and France as previously guided,”
Hargreaves Lansdown analyst, George Salmon, said: “It’s sometimes difficult to get a grip on the underlying direction of travel at Kingfisher, so dependent is the group on the vagaries of the weather. However, with the transformative ‘One’ Kingfisher plan suffering from disruption and like-for-like sales in both France and the UK in negative territory, there aren’t many bright spots for investors in these results.
“A silver lining of sorts is that it looks like Kingfisher isn’t alone in having difficulties in the UK. The group’s flagship B&Q chain saw like-for-like sales fall 4.7 percent, which is similar to the 4.3 percent fall at Bunnings UK, the new owner of Homebase.”