LONDON (Reuters) - Kingfisher (L:KGF), Europe's largest home improvement retailer, reported growth in third-quarter underlying sales with strong demand in Britain and Poland more than offsetting weakness in France.
The firm, which trades as B&Q and Screwfix in Britain and Castorama and Brico Depot in France and other markets, also said on Tuesday that its five year transformation plan, launched in January, was on track.
Kingfisher said group sales at stores open over a year rose 1.8 percent in the three months to Oct. 31, its fiscal third quarter, slowing from growth of 3.0 percent in the previous quarter.
Total sales rose 11.5 percent to 3.0 billion pounds ($3.74 billion).
Like-for-like sales in Britain and Ireland were up 5.8 percent, driven by a 12.7 percent increase at Screwfix that reflected well received new and extended ranges. B&Q's like-for-like sales were up 3.5 percent.
Sales in Poland on the same basis rose 6.7 percent, benefiting from supportive trading conditions.
But in France they fell 3.6 percent in a subdued market.
In January Chief Executive Véronique Laury detailed a strategy to boost Kingfisher's annual profit by 500 million pounds from 2021 that will cost 800 million pounds over five years to deliver. The plan involves unifying the product offer across the business, improving its e-commerce capabilities and driving efficiencies.
The firm also plans to return 600 million pounds to shareholders over the next three years through share buybacks. It has so far returned 182 million pounds.
For its 2016-17 year analysts are on average forecasting an underlying pretax profit of 773 million pounds versus 686 million pounds in 2015-16.
Shares in Kingfisher, up 12 percent so far this year, closed Monday at 369.7 pence, valuing the business at 8.2 billion pounds.
($1 = 0.8011 pounds)