LONDON (Reuters) -European home improvement retailer Kingfisher raised the bottom end of its profit outlook for the full year, saying that while demand for ‘big-ticket’ categories has remained weak seasonal category sales trends have improved since early July.
The FTSE-100-listed group, which owns B&Q and Screwfix in Britain and Castorama and Brico Depot in France and other markets, said on Tuesday there were “positive early signs” of a housing market recovery, notably in the UK.
Kingfisher now expects an adjusted pretax profit for 2024/25 of 510 million to 550 million pounds ($674-$727 million), having previously forecast 490 million to 550 million pounds. It made 568 million pounds in 2023/24.
The group said profit on the same measure fell 0.5% to 334 million pounds in its first half to July 31, with like-for-like sales down 2.4%. It said it won market share in the UK and Poland.
“Trading overall in the first half was in line with our expectations,” CEO Thierry Garnier said.
“This was underpinned by customers continuing to repair, maintain and renovate their existing homes, driving resilient volume trends in our core product categories.”
The group said like-for-like sales were down 0.3% in the third quarter so far.
($1 = 0.7570 pounds)
(Reporting by James Davey; editing by Sarah Young)
