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Castorama boss to take over Kingfisher

Published: 04:47 10 Sep 2014 EDT

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B&Q owner Kingfisher (LON:KGF) surprised the market with the announcement that chief executive Sir Ian Cheshire is to hand over the reins to Veronique Laury, head of French arm Castorama next year.

Cheshire has been 16 years with the group and seven as CEO, a period that has seen both its market value and profits more than double.

Kingfisher said it made the announcement today as it wanted to clarify the succession sooner rather than later. 

Laury has been with Kingfisher for 11 years. As well as chief executive of Castorama, she is a member of the Group Executive Committee.

Daniel Bernard, Kingfisher’s chairman said it had reviewed a number internal and external candidates and decided Laury was uniquely qualified to lead the business on the next leg of its journey.

The news came alongside flat profits of £364mln for the group in the half year to July, on sales 0.9% higher at £5.77bn. On a like-for-like basis sales were 1.8% ahead over the period.

Kingfisher had already warned that sales were struggling June and July in France and Poland, but today said there had been an improvement in August. 

UK was better with B&Q in UK and Ireland enjoying their best first half sales growth for more than a decade, while Screwfix sales jumped 23%.

Shares climbed 4% to 319p.

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