UK 11:32 Monday, 28 September 2026
Breaking news and expert analysis on fast-moving AIM and LSE listed shares
A month or so ago, I noted that DIY retailer Kingfisher (KGF) was singing a song of recovery. Today it is singing a song of profit advance in the first half of the year compared to last year...
Results from Kingfisher (KGF) are effectively in two parts. The first is the set of full year numbers up to the end of January. There is not too much to say about those. The second is the thoughts of the company over the last few months which are naturally far more interesting...given its leading DIY retail positions via B&Q in the UK and Castorama in France plus the very strongly performing (over recent years) Screwfix brand...
Hello, Share Seekers. Though do-it-yourself retailer B&Q was allowed to stay open as a hardware dealer, it did close stores when the lockdown started. It’s now reopening them after a trial period, using the social distancing procedures that we’ve all become used to in supermarkets. The numbers going around will be capped, while plastic screens will be fitted to checkouts and two-metre floor markers will show the distance shoppers should keep from each other. Kingfisher (KGF), which owns the chain, is getting ahead of the game...
I am still playing a bit of catch up post a bout of international business travel but I see on Wednesday, the B&Q and Screwfix owner Kingfisher (KGF) puckered up a trading update. Now I have talked about the stock (positively) before, noting that despite its bizarre obsession with French CEOs, the company offered share appreciation potential 'if management sees the light and breaks the company up'. Judging by the realities expressed in the trading update, this remains the only sensible course of action for any shareholder value creation.
You all know that I think that Kingfisher (KGF) is cheap and actually, as noted here, a stock with takeover potential. It has also been a stock that has frustrated over the last year. As I noted back in July, the company de facto rejected my suggestion to break itself up and appointed a new CEO – as it happens another French national (who today's first half numbers confirmed will start next week)…
I really do not expect corporate players to be even minutely impacted by my witterings on their company but I kind of hoped that the press rumours I excitedly repeated on the potentially new Kingfisher (KGF) CEO a few weeks back would be close to the truth. Late last week however the company announced 'the appointment of Thierry Garnier as Chief Executive Officer'. Yes, it has appointed a French national again! And all this after the ultimately terribly lacklustre Veronique Laury.
I know that I have been (an incorrect) fanboy of Kingfisher (KGF) for the last year or so when the shares have hardly covered themselves in glory but I still see an opportunity prospectively here to make money. As I noted back in March 'look at the cash flow and hope that finally the Chairman (Andy Cosslett) is getting it. Ditching the CEO is just stage one', I read in today's deadwood press that 'the former head of Direct Line is in early talks with B&Q owner Kingfisher about taking over as chief executive'.
After a bunch of polarised press articles which focused on her gender and nationality just as much as her operational performance, the Kingfisher (KGF) CEO Veronique Laury is off - after reflecting that the next stage of her 'One Kingfisher' programme is apparently best handled by somebody else. Many would appraise that whilst the ideal of her 2015-launched corporate effort was initiated with the best intentions (focus ranges, simplification), it has been a dog's dinner of strategic application. Certainly the difficult economic backdrop for any company with big DIY brands such as B&Q and Castorama (in France) has not been exactly perfect...but for every challenging big picture economic aspect, there have been some positive aspects such as the Bunnings self-implosion in the UK or the continued positive structural development of the Screwfix brand...
Confession time: I did read something interesting in the business pages of a broadsheet (ha!) newspaper the other day. The offending article introduced to me the concept of 'DFY', which is not some deviant practice but rather stands for 'done for you'. Apparently the under 40s cannot do DIY, preferring to focus their non-office skills in avocado toast construction and optimising their right (or is it left?) swiping capabilities…
After almost freezing my nether regions off on my usual early doors Sunday bike ride, I settled in to read (online) a couple of the Sunday papers. For quite a few years now I have taken the view that many of the results/strategy preview stories are deeply provocative and excitable, and when the results and strategy statement actually occurs...a whole bunch of fear and angst is already priced in.
