Veronique Laury, CEO of Europe‘s largest home-improvement retailer Kingfisher, has put together a strategy that will cost £800m but turn around annual pre-tax profits of £500m, within five years.
Outlining her initiatives in a statement released on Monday, Laury revealed plans to return £600m to shareholders over three years, in addition to normal dividends. The return will probably take the form of a share buyback.
“The size of the five-year opportunity is significant,” said Laury.
“This plan will leverage the scale of the business by becoming a single, unified company where those customer needs always come first,” chief executive Véronique Laury said.
Kingfisher investors have waited for almost 10 months to learn what rewards they can expect from Laury‘s strategy to unify sourcing and operations.
Buying functions will be brought together in one place, using increased buying scale to cut prices and develop a “more unique” range of products. The online arm of the business will also get a revamp.
The news comes just a week after Wesfarmers, Australia‘s biggest retail group, agreed to buy Homebase from rival business Home Retail Group, putting strain on Kingfisher‘s B&Q.
