By James Davey
LONDON (Reuters) - Kingfisher (L:KGF), Europe's largest home improvement retailer, missed forecasts with a near 7 percent fall in quarterly profit, as a soft market in France and currency movements offset a robust performance in Britain, where the economy is stronger.
Shares in the group, which trades as Castorama and Brico Depot in France, its most profitable market, and B&Q and Screwfix in Britain, fell by up to 3.3 percent on Tuesday.
Kingfisher "clearly expects current subdued levels of trade (in France) to continue against a market expectation of a slight improvement," said Haitong Research analyst Tony Shiret, who has a "sell" stance on the stock.
He reckons consensus expectations for full 2015-16 year pretax profit, 681 million pounds before the update, will fall by about 10 million pounds.
Kingfisher, the world's No. 3 do-it-yourself (DIY) player behind U.S. companies Lowe's (N:LOW) and Home Depot (N:HD), made a retail profit of 223 million pounds ($338 million) in the 13 weeks to Oct. 31, its fiscal third quarter.
That was below analysts' average forecast of 234 million pounds, according to a company-compiled consensus, and down 6.6 percent from the same period last year.
The shortfall reflected a France trading profit miss of about 9 million pounds.
Kingfisher was also hit by 17 million pounds of adverse foreign exchange movements on the translation of non-sterling profits and around 5 million pounds of additional store development costs in France and Poland compared with last year.
"Trading conditions have followed a similar trend to the first half...reflecting the more encouraging macroeconomic backdrop in the UK offset by a softer market in France," said Chief Executive Véronique Laury.
In France, sales at stores open more than a year rose 0.1 percent, compared to analysts' average forecast of a rise of 0.5 percent, reflecting a flat overall home improvement market and a slow house building market.
In the UK, like-for-like sales increased 4.6 percent, ahead of analysts' consensus forecast of up 3.7 percent, with Screwfix the standout performer with like-for-like sales up 13.3 percent.
Total group sales fell 2.5 percent to 2.65 billion pounds.
In March Laury detailed plans to reshape Kingfisher, including closing 60 B&Q stores, cutting the number of product lines, developing unified garden and bathroom businesses and starting a revitalisation programme for big stores across Europe.
She said on Tuesday that strategy was making good progress. An update on financial targets will be issued early next year.
Shares in Kingfisher, up 13 percent over the last year, were down 1.5 pence at 343.6 pence at 1002 GMT, valuing the business at 7.95 billion pounds.