Kingfisher is now a significantly stronger and more sustainable business with a bright future ahead of it.

I’m delighted that the hard work of my 80,000 colleagues around the world has resulted in a substantial increase in the value of our business for shareholders.

Turning to 2011/12 I am pleased we have delivered another year of strong profit growth, our third such year in a row, in what remain challenging times for our customers.

We have much more to do, but I believe Kingfisher is now well on the way to fulfilling its potential as the industry leader in home improvement.

This is an exciting prospect for both our colleagues and our shareholders. Industry leadership will bring with it an outperformance in sales, profit and economic return, making Kingfisher a more valuable business.

Today we are embarking on the next phase of this journey. Our ‘Creating the Leader’ programme will see us emerge as a world-class retailer at helping customers have better, more sustainable homes.

Sustainability is a key part of Kingfisher’s heritage and is a core part of this new strategic programme. We have this year committed to a new challenge: to go beyond neutrality, with a long-term philosophy that we should eventually be able to put more back than we take out in the course of our operations. This commitment is called ‘Kingfisher Net Positive’. A summary of our achievements in the past year is set out in the Sustainability: Becoming 'Net Positive' section and our full CR Report, published in June, will go into more detail on our progress.

Whilst the immediate economic outlook remains uncertain, we face the future in robust shape and with our successful self-help approach now embedded in the way we do business.

 

* For definitions see the Financial Review section