article_snippet: Shares in Kingfisher, which trades as B&Q and Screwfix in UK, jumped up 16p each - a five per cent rise - when the London Stock Exchange opened this morning.
article_snippet: Parent company Kingfisher, which also owns Screwfix, plans to axe about 15 per cent of surplus space as a result of the review of B&Q 360-strong B&Q estate.
article_snippet: Kingfisher, which trades as B&Q and Screwfix in Britain and Castorama and Brico Depot in France, made a pre-tax profit of 675 million pounds  in the year to January 31.The results are the first to be presented by Laury, who succeeded Ian Cheshire in December.
article_snippet: new Chief Executive Veronique Laury added: 'Home improvement is a great market with huge potential and Kingfisher has a strong position within Kingfisher with further scope to grow in a sustainable way.
article_snippet: Other plans include cutting back on some of the 393,000 products sold across the FTSE 100 company, particularly as only 7,000 - amounting to 7 per cent of sales - are currently sold in at least two of Kingfisher's operating companies.
article_snippet: Kingfisher said the impact on jobs from the closure plan will be broadly neutral as Kingfisher is opening about 60 outlets under the Screwfix brand, while Kingfisher will also look to redeploy positions to other parts of the business.
article_snippet: Kingfisher said Kingfisher will close a small number of stores in the country.
article_snippet: Kingfisher came as Kingfisher, which had a binding agreement to buy French rival Mr Bricolage, was forced to pull out of the £200m deal.
article_snippet: The acquisition had been referred to competition authorities because Kingfisher already owns Castorama and Brico Depot in France.