Kingfisher plc (LON:KGF) has delivered strong performance driven by strategic progress and financial discipline
FY 25/26 Highlights
• Underlying± LFL sales +1.4% driven by volume & transaction growth. Total sales +1.3%. UK banners driving growth LFL +3.3%
• Market share gains(2) at B&Q, Screwfix, Brico Dépôt France, Castorama France, and Spain. Poland trading in line with market
• Standout strategic delivery
– Trade sales growing +23% ex-Screwfix. Group trade sales penetration increased to 30%
– E-commerce sales increased +20% ex-Screwfix. Group e-commerce penetration 21%. Marketplace GMV grew +58% to £518m
• Adjusted PBT +6% to £560m, driven by gross margin expansion +80bps and cost discipline, more than offsetting cost pressures. Statutory PBT +23% to £378m
• Adjusted EPS up +15% to 23.8p supported by share buybacks
• Free cash flow of £512m underpinned by 5 days inventory improvements
• Completed £300m share buyback. Announcing full year dividend of 12.40p per share
FY 26/27 Guidance(4)
• Adjusted PBT of £565m-£625m and free cash flow of £450m-£510m
• Commencement of new £300m share buyback programme
Thierry Garnier, Chief Executive Officer, said:
“We have continued to execute our strategy at pace and delivered good margin and cost discipline. This resulted in significant market share gains, profit growth of +13% when excluding last year’s business rates one-off and strong free cash flow.
Our UK banners led the way, with sales +4% at B&Q and +4.5% at Screwfix. This reflects the growth of our digital ecosystem, increased share of wallet from trade customers and the opening of 34 new stores.
We are making rapid progress against our strategic priorities across our banners. Screwfix already derives c.75% of sales from trade customers and c.60% from e-commerce. Elsewhere, trade sales increased +23% as we expanded ranges, enhanced services, and deepened relationships with trade professionals, while e‑commerce grew +20%, powered by the successful scale‑up of our marketplaces. E-commerce now represents one fifth of total Group sales.
With a mixed consumer environment across our markets, we continue to focus on delivering our strategic priorities, maintaining cost discipline and driving shareholder returns. This positions us well to capitalise on the attractive long-term structural growth opportunities within our markets.”
Financial highlights
Sales
· +1.4% underlying LFL sales growth – volume-led and delivered through our progress in strategic growth drivers, successful range reviews and favourable UK weather in the spring
· LFL sales +3.3% B&Q, +3.2% Screwfix, (2.2)% Castorama France, (2.3)% Brico Dépôt, (1.1)% Poland and +8.8% Iberia
· Banners across the Group outperformed their markets, while Poland was in-line with the market
· B&Q and Screwfix were standout performers, driven by trade and e-commerce initiatives, product innovation, transference from the closure of Homebase stores, and strong seasonal sales
· Total sales +0.2%, were impacted by (0.9)% decline due to space changes, reflecting a (1.6)% impact from the disposal of Romania and a +0.7% contribution from net space growth
Gross margin
· +80 basis points to 38.1%, mainly from Kingfisher’s buying and sourcing scale, growth from marketplace and retail media, AI driven promotional effectiveness, improved inventory management and clearance activity, banner mix and FX tailwinds
Pre-tax profit
· Adjusted PBT +6.0% growth to £560m at reported rates. +13% growth when excluding £33m one-off business rates refund benefit in the UK included in the prior year
· Retail profit growth of +4.4% to £734m, representing a 5.7% profit margin at reported rates (+30bps vs FY 24/25)
· Higher central costs +£18m were mainly driven by bonus and share plans
· Lower net finance costs of £9m through lower lease interest and higher interest income
· Statutory PBT of £378m, was up +23.0% (FY 24/25: £307m) benefitting from lower impairment charges than the previous year, and includes £111m of impairments in net store assets and goodwill
· Adjusted EPS increase of +14.9% to 23.8p, through our profit delivery and ongoing share buyback programme. Statutory basic EPS was up +39.5% YoY to 14.0p
Free cash flow
· £512m driven by earnings growth, receipts of tax settlements relating to prior years and effective working capital management, while increasing capex investment
· Gross capital expenditure was £388m, up £71m (+22%) through freehold acquisitions at B&Q, investment in technology and in customer facing maintenance in our existing stores
· Leverage reduced to 1.4x adjusted EBITDA (FY 24/25: 1.6x), reflecting stronger free cash flow, further supported by £97m net one-off cash inflows, primarily comprising a £64m EU state aid tax refund and £33m in net proceeds from the sale of Romania
Strategic highlights
Grow our trade business
· Group trade sales now represent 30% of revenue (FY 24/25: 27%), trade sales grew +23% excluding Screwfix (+12% with Screwfix), driven by our expanding trade proposition across banners
· Dedicated trade zones are now live across all banners and present in 43% of stores (excluding Screwfix). Castorama France successfully rolled out its CastoPro trade proposition across the estate in H1 and has since installed 50 dedicated trade zones in stores. Brico Dépôt France opened its first 2 Pro corners
· TradePoint announced its first standalone store opening in 2026 and expanded its Direct‑to‑Site offer to include products beyond the in‑store range
· Further investment in trade sales partners with 279 now in role across the Group (FY 24/25: 105)
· We now have a trade loyalty proposition in all geographies with total membership up +18% YoY
· Screwfix successfully launched a new in-app loyalty programme and an enhanced Sprint proposition, with delivery now available in as little as 20 minutes covering c.60% of the UK population
· Poland’s new loyalty programme, enhanced with a cash‑back feature, has attracted 489,000 sign‑ups
· Our updated ambition is for Group trade sales to reach £5 billion in the medium term
Scale our digital ecosystem
· Group e-commerce sales penetration reached 21% (FY 24/25: 19%) and e-commerce sales grew +20% excluding Screwfix (+11% including Screwfix)
· Marketplaces are now live across all regions. Group marketplace GMV is up +58% to £518m
· B&Q now has 3.7m SKUs on its marketplace with GMV up +44% to £445m and a retail profit contribution(5) of £15m
· B&Q launched 15‑minute Click & Collect for 1P orders and completed the rollout of the UK’s first marketplace Click & Collect service across 300 stores
· We have started onboarding cross-border vendors. Our Group-wide onboarding process aims to provide vendors with a single pathway to access all of Kingfisher’s marketplaces
· AI-driven product recommendation and personalisation engines are live in all banners (excluding Iberia)
· Retail media capabilities are now available across banner apps and websites. In‑store digital media screens are in pilot at Screwfix, B&Q and Castorama France
· Castorama France led the launch of Core IQ, our data‑monetisation platform offering deep trading and digital performance insights to vendors
Win through our offer, own exclusive brands and services
· OEB accounted for 43% of Group sales (FY 24/25: 44%)
· Launched second-generation Erbauer tool range, with Erbauer now the number one tools brand sold across the Group
· Ashmead kitchen range launched across B&Q, Castorama France and Castorama Poland, now our #1 volume driver in kitchen ranges sold
· Continued expansion of our OEB tool and equipment rental propositions across banners
· Growing services offering covering design and installation, tool rental and project financing
Grow our banners and formats
· Net store openings of 41 across our portfolio, which contributed +0.7% to total Group sales
· B&Q opened 10 stores, including successfully converting 8 former Homebase stores within 3 months of acquisition and closed 3 stores
· Screwfix opened 32 stores, including 13 new ultra-compact City stores and closed 5 stores
· Castorama France opened its first 2 franchise stores in June 2025, converted from its existing estate
· Brico Dépôt France opened one store in FY 25/26, transferred from Castorama France in FY 24/25
· Castorama Poland opened one net store and is trialling standalone Design Points, offering kitchen design services in high‑traffic shopping malls
· Screwfix France opened five stores in northern France
Guidance(4) for FY 26/27
We expect to deliver:
· Adjusted PBT in the range of approximately £565m-£625m
· Free cash flow in the range of approximately £450m-£510m
Key Assumptions:
· Space: sales impact of c.+1%, mainly from Screwfix UK & Ireland, B&Q and Castorama Poland
· Net finance costs: c.£105m (FY 25/26: £91m)
· Adjusted effective tax rate: c.26% (FY 25/26: 26%)
· Capex: c.£400m (FY 25/26: £388m)
· £13m non-recurring 2025/26 losses(6)
Share buyback – completion of existing programme and new £300m programme announced
In line with our capital allocation policy, in March 2025 the Board determined that a further £300m of surplus capital was available to return to shareholders via a share buyback programme. We completed this programme on 5 March 2026.
The Board is pleased to announce the commencement of a further £300m share buyback programme. Since September 2021 Kingfisher has completed £1.2bn of share buybacks.
The remainder of this release consists of six sections:
1) Strategy update
2) Trading review by division
3) Financial review
4) Condensed financial statements
5) Forward-looking statements
6) Glossary
Footnotes
(1) Underlying growth refers to LFL sales excluding calendar and leap year impact:
Leap year impact reflects the impact of an extra day of trading on Thursday 29 February 2024. The estimated impact of the leap year on FY 25/26 LFL sales of (0.2)%. Calendar impact represents the impact of the annual calendar shift on LFL sales growth due to different days of the week falling into or out of the current period compared to the prior period. For example, historically, higher trading is seen on a Friday and Saturday as compared to a Sunday. This includes the impact of national public holidays falling on different days of the week compared to the prior period. The estimated impact of the annual calendar shift on FY 25/26 LFL sales of (0.1)%.
(2) Market numbers based on, GfK, BRC (British Retail Consortium) and Barclays for UK; Nielsen IQ / GfK and Inoha for France; GFK for Poland; AECOC for Spain.
(3) Refers to net debt to Adjusted EBITDA. Net debt includes £2,238m (FY 24/25: £2,253m) of total lease liabilities, including nil of lease liabilities held for sale (FY 24/25: £42m)
(4) Guidance assumes current exchange rates.
(5) Marketplace retail contribution includes only directly attributable run costs.
(6) £4m adjusted profit before tax loss Romania in 2025/26 (Romania disposed in May 25), £9m adverse contribution to Group adjusted PBT in Turkey in 2025/26. Will not recur as Turkey JV now fully impaired
Non-GAAP measures and other terms
Throughout this release ‘*’ indicates the first instance of a term defined and explained in the Glossary (Section 6). Not all the figures and ratios used are readily available from the audited condensed financial statements included in Section 4 of this announcement. Management believes that these non-GAAP measures (or ‘Alternative Performance Measures’), including adjusted profit measures, constant currency and like-for-like (LFL) sales growth, are useful and necessary to assist the understanding of the Group’s results. Where required, a reconciliation to statutory amounts is set out in the Financial Review (Section 3).
Full year results announcement and data tables
This announcement and data tables for FY 25/26 can be downloaded from the Investors section of our website at www.kingfisher.com/investors.
Results presentation and Q&A
A pre-recorded analyst and investor presentation will be broadcast via the Investors section of our website at www.kingfisher.com at 09.30 (UK time), which will be immediately followed by a live virtual Q&A session with management.
For enquiries, please email [email protected].
Financial calendar
| Q1 26/27 trading update | 26 May 2026 |
| Annual General Meeting | 26 June 2026± |
| Half year results | 22 September 2026± |
| Q3 26/27 trading update | 24 November 2026± |
± Dates are provisional and may be subject to change
