LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Declining sales at Castorama will limit near-term growth at Kingfisher, Goldman Sachs said, as it cut the stock to 'neutral' from 'buy' and chopped the price target to 270p from 350p.
"We believe consistently declining profitability at Castorama will offset any incremental gross margin uplift at the other formats," GS said.

It said that while better online capabilities and differentiated products/attractive price should provide a sustainable competitive position for Kingfisher across multiple markets, earnings growth in the near term will remain unattractive.

The bank reduced its underlying pre-tax profit estimates by 4%/10%/13% for FY19/20/21E, reflecting lower like-for-like sales growth and continued margin pressure in France.

It estimated that retail margin in France will decline from 9.5% in 2013 to around 5% by end of FY19. GS pointed out that LFL growth at Castorama has been declining for the last five years and said it reckons Castorama might be close to EBIT break-even if adjusted for rental expense.

Goldman noted that since being added to the 'buy' list in October 2017, the shares are down 23% versus the FTSE World Europe's 9% decline.

Back in September, Kingfisher posted a 30% drop in first-half profit as problems in France overshadowed its UK business.

At 1245 GMT, the shares were up 0.7% to 238.20p.

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