Afternoon:
9°c
The sun is coming out at DIY group Kingfisher, where sales of garden furniture and barbecue kit have soared thanks to good weather.
Kingfisher saw profits at its B&Q arm jump in the past three months as stay-at-home Brits favoured sprucing up their homes over foreign trips.
Profit from the UK arm leapt 89% to £61 million in the 13 weeks to 2 May, a much better result than the City was expecting. The shares responded with a rise of 8p at 191.8p, leaving the FTSE company valued at about £4.5 billion.
A tough cost-cutting programme being pushed through by chief executive Ian Cheshire has also helped and Matthew McEachran at Singer Capital Markets said: “We see the strategic turnaround plans as being capable of delivering more upside in the remainder of the year.”
Cheshire pledged to improve shareholder returns and the in-store experience for customers when he took charge last February. Like-for-like sales, the most closely watched measure of performance, are up 3.2% in the UK.
Analysts pointed out that Kingfisher has been helped by a number of external factors such as rival MFI's shutting scores of stores. Cheshire said: “It's probably half and half between self help and the market giving us a leg-up. “We can't count on the weather coming through again.”
