Profits almost halved

Although Kingfisher was able to increase sales by 4.1 per cent to € 2.934 bn in the first quarter (-2 per cent like-for-like), profits went down by 45.4 per cent to € 99.35 mio. It was the difficult UK market above all that caused problems for the European number one. Here the company recorded a sales decline of 5.5 per cent (-6.8 per cent like-for-like) for a total of € 1.495 bn, and profits fell by 70.3 per cent to € 31.8 mio. In France, the company reported sales growth of 7.6 per cent to € 1.018 bn (1.7 per cent like-for-like), with profits remaining unchanged at € 58.4 mio. Other commitments in Europe (including Poland, Italy, Spain, Ireland and Russia) brought sales growth of 32.4 per cent (11.8 per cent like-for-like) to € 298 mio. Sales in Asia shot up by 90.7 per cent to € 122 mio (11.8 per cent like-for-like), with losses amounting to € 11.2 mio, which includes € 4.4 mio for last year's acquisition of the Obi stores.
€ 1 = £ 0.6884; £ 1 = € 1.4525