B&Q plans to sell six of its UK stores in a bid to raise funds for boss Véronique Laury’s five-year transformation strategy.

The DIY retailer plans to sell and lease back its stores in Birmingham, Croydon, Southampton and Cardiff, as well as two more stores in the Northeast.

According to The Times, this planned sale is intended to raise £125m to drive up parent company Kingfisher’s net cash position, which has fallen to £99m from £650m last year.

This decline has been caused in part by Laury’s ambition to align the ranges across Kingfisher’s DIY stores in the UK, France and Poland and a resulting backlog of inventory across the chain’s old ranges.

The DIY group is around halfway into Laury’s five-year transformation plan, which she hopes will boost annual profits by £500m when it comes to fruition.

B&Q, which will update the market with its third-quarter results this week, is set to sell its stores in a tough DIY market.

Kingfisher has shuttered 65 B&Q stores since Laury took the helm in 2015, taking its overall store estate to 296 shops across the UK and Ireland.

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