French taste for DIY boosts Kingfisher Appetite for home improvement projects in France helped Kingfisher, the UK-based DIY retailer, post double-digit profit growth in 2011. The owner of the B&Q chain reported pre-tax profits of £797m, up 19 per cent on 2010. Turnover rose by a more modest 3.6 per cent in the period to £10.8bn. Growth in the French home improvement market lifted like-for-like sales at its Castorama and Brico Dépôt stores by 3.7 per cent to £4.5bn, while efforts to improve the supply chain helped lift operating profit in France by 20 per cent to £423m. Castorama and Brico Dépôt generated almost half the group's annual operating profits in 2011. In the UK, pre-tax profits from retail rose 11.6 per cent to £271m, despite a fall in like-for-like sales of 1.4 per cent to £4.3bn. The result was boosted by the addition of 27 former Focus DIY stores to its B&Q chain. Kingfisher has launched a B&Q channel on YouTube, featuring instructional videos, in an attempt to encourage customers to buy its DIY products. Ian Cheshire, chief executive, said B&Q and Screwfix, the retailer's UK chains, had reason to be a little more optimistic about consumer sentiment towards the second half of the year, adding that the Queen's diamond jubilee and the Olympic Games would help to "get people in a more positive frame of mind." Kingfisher plans to offer limited-edition royal gnomes to increase the "feelgood factor," he added. Growth in Poland, Turkey, Russia and Germany helped lift international operating profits, excluding the UK and France, 13 per cent to £188m. The group's China business continued to make a loss, however. Changes to the business model helped to ease losses from £8m in 2010 to £3m this year. Kingfisher has changed its Chinese strategy to a "do it for me" model, and is experimenting with a showroom format featuring model apartments. The company will pay a full-year dividend of 8.84p, a 1.77p increase on 2010. Kingfisher's shares rose 1.2 per cent, or 3.6p, to 303.6p in morning trading.