Rebadged as B&Q stores

In the third quarter B&Q, a British DIY chain, converted 27 of the 29 recently acquired former Focus stores its own format. This information is revealed by the latest quarterly report of parent company Kingfisher. It also reports sales of £ 928 mio for B&Q in Britain and Ireland. That is 0.4 per cent more year-on-year, but 0.9 per cent down like-for-like. This contrasts with 20.6 per cent growth in profit.In France, Kingfisher’s largest individual market, the Castorama retail format grew sales by 2.6 per cent (1.7 per cent like-for-like) to £ 634 mio on the comparable period last year. Brico Dépôt saw growth of 3.2 per cent (2.2 per cent like-for-like) to £ 557 mio. Altogether Kingfisher’s profit was up by 15.6 per cent in France.The rates of growth were appreciably higher in eastern Europe. The stores in Poland expanded by 8.0 per cent (2.6 per cent like-for-like), notching up sales of £ 312 mio. With volume sales of £ 93 mio the growth rate in Russia amounted to 43.8 per cent, which is still 22.3 per cent in like-for-like terms. The Turkish joint venture Koctas was able to increase sales by £ 4 mio and 9.4 per cent. During the third quarter six new stores were added to the total in Poland, one in Russia and two in Turkey. By the end of the group’s financial year there should be an additional two stores in Poland and one each in Russia and Turkey.The Brico Dépôt stores in Spain grew their sales by 2.3 per cent (2.2 per cent like-for-like) to £ 62 mio.Progress in China continues to be negative. B&Q still has 40 stores in the country after one closure. They reported sales 5.0 per cent down to £ 92 mio (-4.1 per cent like-for-like).