Kingfisher appoints crown prince and princess

Two
internal candidates

Cheshire,
currently 53, wants to leave Kingfisher in 2016 at the latest. He will have
lead the group for eight years by then. Earlier he had a leading role at
B&Q.

The CEO is
pushing two of his closest employees into the spotlight as potential
successors. The first is 48-year-old Kevin O’Byrne, the former CFO of
Dixons Retail who held that same position at Kingfisher for four years, before
taking control of British B&Q and Turkish Koctas in February 2012.

The second
is 50-year-old CFO Karen Watts. She has only been at Kingfisher since
October, since earlier she worked at Vodafone and BT. It is common use at Kingfisher
that at least two internal candidates are appointed as possible successors.

Declining
sales for Kingfisher

Before leaving
the ship, Cheshire nonetheless wants to steer Kingfisher towards calmer seas. The economic
crisis has hit the company hard, especially in France and the UK. In the first quarter
of the financial year 2013/2014 the company saw its global sales drop 4.2% on a
comparable basis.

Kingfisher, who
owns the formats B&Q, Castorama, Brico Dépôt and Screwfix, operates
about 1025 shops in eight countries in Europe and Asia. In the financial year
2013, which ended late January, the company had sales of 10.573 billion pound
or 12.4 billion euro, 2.4% less than in the financial year 2011/2012.

In the
meantime Alain Souillard has been appointed as general director of Brico Dépôt
International. Currently he is leading Brico Dépôt France, where he will be
succeeded by Alexandre Falck. Souillard has worked for Carrefour for 35 years.
Falck also comes from the ranks of Carrefour.