B&Q and Screwfix owner Kingfisher has posted a buoyant set of results for the half year, signalling a “renaissance” for the home improvements sector according to analysts. Despite the uncertainty caused to the economy by the Brexit vote, Kingfisher reported a sales rise of 2.7% with retail profits up 8.7% in constant currencies. Underlying pre-tax profit was up 13.5% to £436 million.

Véronique Laury, chief executive officer, commented: "It has been a productive first half. We have delivered a good 'business as usual' result with both sales and profit growth. Performance has been driven by Poland and the UK, especially Screwfix, and a stable profit performance in France. This has been achieved alongside managing the start of our ambitious transformation plan, based on creating a unified company where customer needs come first.  

"In the UK, the EU referendum has created uncertainty for the economic outlook, even though there has been no clear evidence of an impact on demand so far on our businesses. In France we remain cautious on the short term outlook.

"Looking longer term, we are starting to build solid foundations to enable us to deliver our five year transformation, which is our key growth driver. We are making good progress on our strategic milestones for this first year and we are on track. The level of transformation activity will increase significantly, however given the expertise and energy of our colleagues we continue to feel confident about the challenges ahead."