The market simply does not believe that the “transformation” planned at Kingfisher is achievable, or will do enough to help the business to cope with challenging DIY markets. There were surprisingly negative reactions from some analysts, including at least one comparison with Marc Bolland’s doomed attempt to turn around Marks & Spencer.
Some might wonder, too, if the company should not really have got around to this before, rationalising and centralising buying across the group while gearing up its balance sheet. The share price fall, off 21p to 324p, reflects the initial costs of the programme, about £50 million in year one and between £70 million and £100 million in the next.
Kingfisher buys in goods worth about £7 billion each year, bought separately by