Thank you and good morning. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Thierry Garnier, the CEO of Kingfisher, and I'm here with our CFO, Bernard Bot. Unfortunately, we cannot meet in person today. I'm very happy to finally be able to update you on our full-year results and our longer-term direction for Kingfisher. As outlined on page four, our agenda for today will start with an update on the COVID-19 response plan and latest trading performance. Bernard will share the full-year results and the latest view of our mitigation actions and liquidity situation. I will present our diagnostic of the situation as we found it in 2019 and talk about Kingfisher's new strategic direction and priorities. We'll then open up the meeting for Q&A. We have a lot to cover today.
It will be a slightly longer presentation than you are used to, but I think it's important that we spend time on these topics. Since I joined Kingfisher at the end of September, I've spent my time and my energy deep in the business with my colleagues, our customers, and our suppliers. I'm passionate about retail, and I've learned a lot. It was my immediate priority. I'm pleased to announce that our group executive team is now complete and has been hard at work through the crisis. As you can see on page five, we have seven new appointments since September. This is an experienced team of executives with impressive track records, with a combination of experience, both inside Kingfisher and in other sectors such as hospitality, electronics, retail, grocery, and consumer goods. I'm confident that this team has what it will take to deliver on our ambitions for Kingfisher.
How we are faced with COVID-19, our priority was to take care of our people, our customers, and our communities. Page six is a summary of the actions we have taken to manage the impact of COVID-19 on the business. We have already published a lot of detail on our actions as we have gone through the crisis. We have acted responsibly above all else. All stores in our largest markets had essential status from day one, but we decided to keep them shut at the start of confinement and reopen only when it was safe to do so. We have also been ring-fencing and donating PPE to healthcare workers. We have been agile. We have reacted fast. We made changes overnight to our operating models. For example, launched new click and collect and drive-through options that became leading practices in our markets.
We have made a lot of progress in e-commerce while leveraging our stores for picking and fulfilling orders. E-commerce surged up to four times in April and continues to see strong growth. We have protected the financial position of the company by taking decisive action on costs, accessing government support, and securing additional funding facilities. In short, we are on a very sound footing, and in fact, the crisis has put extra momentum behind some of our new strategic priorities. I will come back to this. Before I move on, let me say that I was humbled by the dedication and hard work of our teams. They have been the driving force behind our ability to manage through this crisis, and I want to say a big thank you to each one of my colleagues.
On page seven, the chart on the left shows the group like-for-like and e-commerce growth over the past 15 weeks. The sales profile in March and early April reflects our decision to close stores for several weeks. You can also see the strong e-commerce growth I referenced before. When stores started to reopen the later part of April, we have seen very strong like-for-like sales. We saw a significant surge in categories such as outdoor, building materials, paint, garden, and flooring and tiling. Demand in May and June continues to be strong. This partly reflects pent-up demand post-reopening, but it is now clear that home improvement is proving resilient through COVID-19 due to the specific nature of this crisis. Customers are spending more time at home with fewer leisure options, traveling less, and turning to DIY.
Moving to page eight, for 2020, we have decided on eight immediate priorities to be extremely disciplined. I already discussed the first two priorities around COVID-19 and our group executive team. Third is stabilizing our French business. This remains a pressing priority. We have been fixing IT and supply chain issues, strengthening the supply chain team, and in October last year, appointed a new experienced CEO for France. Availability and indeed like-for-like sales improved significantly before COVID-19. Fourth is a new trading approach we implemented in Q4. We have selectively reintroduced trading events and have invested in Screwfix prices with good early results. We have plans to relaunch installations in B&Q in 2020. Fifth is finding a better balance between local and group. We have launched two task forces to rebalance our group commercial and IT operating models.
This will allow our banners to tailor their ranges to local needs, but also continue to realize group scale benefits in branded buying, own product, and technology. Six, it is critical to continue to build our e-commerce capabilities. Our direction is to increasingly rely on stores to fulfill most of our e-commerce orders, yeah, click and collect and home delivery from stores. Seventh is about focus. We must do fewer things but do them better. We have stopped several non-core initiatives and IT projects. We have slowed the rate of range reviews. Implementing the plan exit from Russia is also part of refocusing our energy and resources. We hope to be in a position to share more soon. Lastly, cost reduction is a near and long-term priority under our new strategy. COVID-19 is reinforcing our focus here.
Moving to page nine, a few quick comments on our Q4 and February performance. Our new trading approach, better availability in France, reintroduction of sole local ranges, were key to our performance. Many of these actions have been the result of the group empowering the banners. In particular, I'm pleased that our performance in France has been improving, with +2.5% for Castorama and +4.3% like-for-like for Brico. Our banners did slightly better than the market in February. We also managed to improve like-for-like performance in Poland, despite a soft market. We're marking progress, but there is much work to do. Of course, we are mindful of the significant uncertainty in the current environment. Let me now hand over to Bernard.
Thank you, Thierry. Good morning, everyone. Let me turn to slide 11 and an overview of our performance since the start of last year. Overall, Kingfisher's financial performance for the year 2019/2020 was disappointing. We saw a decline in group sales of 0.8% in constant currency. Growth in Screwfix, Poland, and Romania was offset by declines in B&Q, France, Russia, and Iberia. Group gross margin percentage was flat in line with guidance. Overhead costs were broadly flat, with higher costs from inflation, digital, and store openings in Screwfix and Poland offset by lower transformation spend. Cash flow was lower than prior year at GBP 191 million. Net leverage was maintained at 2x, and we ended up the year net cash positive. Despite a disappointing first nine months, our performance in Q4 and in the first six weeks of this financial year was more encouraging.
Turning to the impact of COVID-19, as of mid-March, we started to be impacted by the pandemic. We took immediate and effective action to control our costs and protect cash, while also arranging access to significant additional liquidity facilities. As already announced, the board has decided that no final dividend will be proposed given the ongoing uncertainty around COVID-19. This uncertainty also means that we are not able to quantify with confidence the impact of COVID-19 on expectations for this financial year. Slide 12 is a dashboard of the key financials of the past year. Let me touch on our profits and return metrics here. Starting with retail profit, this was GBP 786 million, down 3.9%, with retail profit margin down 20 basis points to 6.8%. The adjusted pre-tax profit was down 5.2% to GBP 544 million. Statutory pre-tax profit was GBP 103 million after GBP 441 million of exceptional items.
Statutory profit after tax was 8 million. Our return on capital employed was flat at 8.6%, with a decline in profit offset by the impact on capital employed of property impairments. On to slide 13. Purpose of this table is to explain two reallocations of costs that we have made in our results to bring them into line with the latest status of the business and our new strategy. Starting with the central support costs, which include the cost of central offer and sourcing and supply chain and logistics, which are normally allocated to Kingfisher's retail banners. We have updated our allocation based on the level and type of support provided. Neutral at group retail profit level, this has resulted in a change to reported retail profits by geography, with the principal effect of more costs being allocated to Poland and fewer to the U.K.
The second reallocation relates to transformation P&L costs. As promised in our half year results, we are no longer reporting transformation P&L costs separately and have removed underlying PBT as a key performance measure. To effect this change, we have reallocated transformation P&L cost to retail profit and central cost on the basis of where the costs were incurred or who the beneficiary was. With the launch of our new strategy, any further start-up or incremental cost of change will not be carved out in the future. For comparability, the prior year has also been restated, and you can view the reallocation table within the appendices to this presentation. On to slide 14 and gross margin for 2019/2020. At 37%, gross margin was flat, both at reported and constant rates, in line with the guidance we gave at the start of 2019.
Sourcing and buying benefits of 80 basis points were offset by net pricing and trading initiatives, incremental clearance, and logistics and stock inefficiencies, mainly in Castorama France. You may recall that at H1, the gross margin percentage was up 60 basis points. While we continued to deliver sourcing benefits in H2, our margin was impacted by a new trading approach. Promotion-based trading events helped delivered a positive Q4 like-for-like sales performance. In line with expectations, clearance remained elevated, reflecting significant range change across the group, including the new kitchens range at B&Q. Let me now take you through the exceptional charges for the year of GBP 441 million, of which approximately GBP 300 million is non-cash. Going down the middle column, the first significant item is a GBP 67 million net restructuring charge, which as you may recall, was booked in the first half of last year.
These costs related to our plans to close 11 stores in France and 19 Screwfix Germany outlets. In relation to Russia, we recognized GBP 130 million charge, mainly attributable to store asset write-downs. Russia is now classified as held for sale on our balance sheet, and the sales process is ongoing. The charge of GBP 118 million relates to store impairments in B&Q, Castorama France, and Iberia, reflecting financial performance in full year 2019/2020 and lower freehold market values. Exceptional cost of GBP 39 million in Romania reflects store and goodwill impairments. The next item relates to taxes in France totaling GBP 50 million. About half of this relates to a settlement with the French tax authority, as disclosed back in Q3. In addition, a provision for GBP 26 million has been booked for an uncertain position in relation to a multi-year business tax in France.
Finally, other exceptional items of GBP 44 million relate mainly to IT modules and digital tools that will not be rolled out or have been discontinued. After all exceptional items, statutory profit before tax was GBP 103 million. To note, we reran our impairment test in light of the coronavirus crisis. We concluded that the impact was not material. Slide 16. The performance of our major geographies. There are slides in the appendix detailing the performance of each of our retail banners. To summarize, sales performance was mixed, with like-for-like sales slightly down in the U.K., weaker in France, Russia, and Iberia, and up in Poland and Romania. Profit in the U.K., which accounted for around two-thirds of group retail profit, was slightly up, offset by 9.7% decline in France and a 7% decline in Poland, with the losses from the other remaining geographies, GBP 4 million higher at GBP 28 million.
Slide 17 provides an overview of cash flows. We generated nearly GBP 1.3 billion of EBITDA and paid GBP 469 million of net rent. Working capital showed an outflow of GBP 127 million, which reflected an increase in stock of GBP 70 million, most of which related to store expansion in Screwfix in Poland and a net decrease in combined debtors and creditors position of GBP 57 million. After capital expenditure, tax, and interest payment, free cash flow for the year was GBP 191 million. Income from property disposal was largely driven by a small number of sale and leaseback transactions at B&Q. Exceptional cash outflows related mainly to store closures and a settlement with the French tax authority. After dividends, net cash flow was positive GBP 3 million. Turning to slide 18, let me summarize how we have managed the financial impact of COVID-19 to date.
The three months to April 30 was a tale of two halves, with trading to March 14 continuing the positive trends of Q4, followed by significant impact from COVID-related disruption. Overall, group sales were down 24% in the quarter. Since the start of the crisis, we have taken significant and effective action to quickly adapt our operating model, reduce our costs, and protect our cash. Access to liquidity has been a key priority in these uncertain times. Today, we have over GBP 3 billion of cash resources available, and this provides us with substantial headroom should we be faced with a prolonged period of reduced sales, even if this is currently not expected. With nearly all our stores open for in-store purchasing, I'm encouraged by our recent trading. Group like-for-like sales for Q2 to date are up nearly 22%.
However, given the uncertainty in the external environment, we cannot quantify the impact of COVID-19 on expectations for this year, and therefore, no specific financial guidance has been provided. Moving to slide 19, a reminder of some of the key initiatives we have taken on cost and cash. These have been well covered in our Q1 release, I will not go through the slide in detail. Let me point out a couple of updates. With regards to furloughing, by the end of May, we had approximately 10% of our colleagues covered by these programs as our stores reopened. With the exception of those who are vulnerable and/or at higher risk of infection, all remaining colleagues in France and Romania returned from furlough on the 1st of June, with remaining colleagues in the U.K. and Spain expected back by the 1st of July.
From this date, we have decided to no longer claim under the furlough programs in the U.K. and France, including for the higher risk population who have not yet returned. With regards to capital expenditure, while we acted quickly at the start of the crisis to stop non-essential and development spend, we are reviewing our capital expenditure plans on a case-by-case basis, maintaining tight control in case we need to act quickly again. Finally, we have decided to no longer make use of opportunities to defer tax payments, and we will pay the balance of what was due in the coming weeks. Now, moving to slide 20 and our current liquidity and financial position.
Over the last three months, we arranged access to nearly GBP 1.4 billion of additional liquidity facilities, including a term facility guaranteed by the French state, access to the Bank of England CCFF program, plus an additional RCF of GBP 250 million. This comes on top of the existing RCF facilities totaling GBP 775 million. Currently, including around GBP 730 million of cash generated by the business since the beginning of the year, cash at bank is circa GBP 2 billion. This includes drawn amounts of approximately GBP 535 million from the French term facility and GBP 600 million from 11-month commercial paper issued under the CCFF. While both the amounts are not expected to be needed, even under our worst case COVID-19 scenario, they could be required should the pandemic be significantly more prolonged or severe. Including around GBP 1 billion of undrawn RCFs, total liquidity that the group can access is over GBP 3 billion.
I'm also happy to report that as of April 30th, we held our inventory balance flat year-on-year, despite a 24% reduction in sales in Q1. Our inventory balance was further helped by strong sales in May, with the balance now lower than a year ago. Due to the durable nature of our goods, we have not recorded any meaningful stock provisions, and we are working hard to ensure good availability despite exceptional demand levels over the last month. Finally, we started the year with limited financial debt and a leverage ratio at the lower end of our medium-term target range. Turning to my final slide, as I said earlier, we're not able to quantify the impact of COVID-19 on expectations for this full year. This slide, however, summarizes our performance to date. As already mentioned, Q1 sales were significantly impacted by COVID-19, with group like-for-like sales down 24.8%.
Encouragingly, we have seen a strong sales recovery in Q2 following store reopenings, with Q2 group like-for-like sales up 21.8% to date. Our Q1 gross margin was down year-over-year. This was almost entirely linked to COVID-19 factors, mainly reflecting the fixed nature of some of our logistics costs and a greater relative share of home delivered sales. With regards to pricing and promotion, our price index has remained below 100 in all of our key retail banners. We have had less promotional-based activity relative to the fourth quarter of last year. As I said out before, we have taken significant action to reduce costs and preserve cash this year, including controlling our CapEx. As a result of these actions and the strong recovery of sales in May, our net cash flow since January 31st is approximately GBP 730 million.
This is a material improvement on the GBP 250 million outflow referred to in our Q1 trading update. This movement reflects a relative improvement in our sales trends over the last five weeks, as well as from our actions to preserve cash, some of which are timing related. Let me now hand back to Thierry.
Thank you, Bernard. While managing COVID-19 has been our most urgent priority, it would equally be a mistake not to prepare the company for the future. Kingfisher needs a new direction. Our new plan is called Powered by Kingfisher. Kingfisher is a leading home improvement business in Europe. I want to start by recognizing some of our fundamental strengths. This is on page 23. The markets we are in are attractive. All our markets have been growing in the past six to seven years, and this is expected to continue. Customers remain passionate about improving their homes. Demand indicators are stable. In retail, this is quite a good situation to be in. Given the specific nature of the COVID-19 crisis, home improvement is proving resilient. Home improvement has higher profit margins than many other retail sectors, such as grocery.
We do have growing online competition, but home improvement is partly insulated versus online pure plays. Because of the specific nature of DIY, the importance of advice and design expertise, and the bulky nature of many of our products, we see a clear role for stores. Plus, as we have seen during COVID-19, stores are an asset to enable e-commerce. It is clear that we have leading positions in all our key markets, and awareness of our banners is stronger than ever. We have strong commercial assets, including our eight group sourcing offices and Own Exclusive Brands. Our 77 colleagues are knowledgeable, skilled, and have been with us for over seven years on average. Our credentials in responsible business practices are industry leading, especially when it comes to the sustainable sourcing of wood and paper. Finally, we have a portfolio of distinctly positioned banners.
These banners can address diverse customer needs and segments. I will talk more about this shortly. Looking back at the past four years, I can see some clear achievements as listed on page 24. We can build on this. Kingfisher has leveraged its scale to deliver sourcing and buying improvements. Kingfisher has built design and sourcing capabilities for its own exclusive brands. Bathroom and power tools are great examples. Investments were made to improve the price competitiveness in B&Q and Castorama France. Our index today is at 100 or lower versus peers. More than GBP 100 million in GNFR and operational savings have been delivered. A common SAP template has been fully deployed in B&Q. Rollout is in progress for other banners. There have been some execution delays. The underlying template is robust.
Kingfisher established a finance shared service center in Poland, a good first step to driving back-office scale benefits. At the same time, we must recognize that Kingfisher's performance in the last three to four years has been disappointing. Here I believe that many of the issues were self-inflicted. Be direct and share my diagnostic with you on page 25. As a group, Kingfisher not only tried to do things together, but tried to become one. There is absolutely no doubt that there is much we can do together, and that we should leverage our scale intelligently. Kingfisher is comprised of distinctive retail banners addressing diverse customer needs. We should not aim to become one with the same range, the same proposition, same marketing or same merchandising. The local group operating model was imbalanced. Many key customer-facing decisions such as range creation, pricing, promotion were centralized.
As a result, the positioning of our banners was diluted. In the end, the proposition weakened and banners lost the agility to respond to local customer needs. Over time, trying to become one with such diverse banners ended up creating an overly complex operating model with duplication of activities, inefficiencies, and an increase in central costs. Kingfisher became overly product-led versus being retail-led. It focused time, energy, and capital on centralized product development. We need great product development. It should be balanced with investment in the retail proposition. Lastly, Kingfisher attempted to do too much, too fast. There were multiple large initiatives running in parallel, such as changes to range, IT systems, supply chain, and organization. We must recognize that France was the most affected. These issues directly impacted the group results with declines in like-for-like sales and market share.
Excluding Screwfix, e-commerce participation moved from less than 1% to just 3% over four years. At last, significant costs and inventory were added to the business. Let me now discuss markets shift on page 26. The shift towards online is clear in home improvement. Our markets are at different stages, but all are experiencing the impact of this change. Of course, there has been a further acceleration of this trend during COVID-19. There is a gradual shift towards smaller stores. Smaller and centrally located stores are increasingly meeting the need for convenience and speed. In mature markets like the U.K. and France, discounters have been growing in home improvement. Finally, there has been a shift towards do it for me as urbanization and incomes have grown.
It is also constrained, for example, due to limited supply of tradespeople, and our data shows that the shift is very gradual. What we are seeing here recently is that COVID-19 has somewhat depressed demand for do it for me and favored DIY. We also see new trends and innovation in this field with service platforms like NeedHelp. My primary focus in recent months has been to get close to our customers. What strikes me is that we need to be really nuanced in how we think about customer needs across our markets. As you can see on page 27, there are indeed some shared needs across our markets. This enables us to develop great own products and sell them across our banners. It is wrong to assume a one-size-fits-all approach. If you take a category like painting, you will discover that frequency of repainting is different.
Once every two and a half years in the U.K., once every eight years in France on average. The budgets and price points are much lower in the U.K. than France. The colors and brands sold are different across our markets. I could talk to many other categories where we can see differences. Not to mention that there are different customer segments such as pro or extremely budget-conscious shoppers. The world is not one. The customer is not one and is not becoming one in the future. This is a key principle behind our new strategy. Moving now to page 28 to talk about Kingfisher banners. Each banner has its own DNA, its tailored proposition and operating model to best serve its target customers. We operate general home improvement banners such as B&Q and Castorama. They offer broad choice and are positioned competitively on price.
We have trade-focused banners in Screwfix and TradePoint. Their proposition is specifically designed for the pro and designed to guarantee convenience and speed. We also have Brico Dépôt in France and Iberia where we operate a discounter model. What drives success here is tight ranges, great availability, basic levels of services, and unbeatable prices, and supported by a much lower cost operating model. We believe Brico Dépôt can reclaim its DNA as a true discount model, which has great potential. Let me summarize our strategic direction on page 29. Kingfisher banners are not the same, and this is a strength. They address diverse customer needs, operate different models, and each will have a clear positioning and plan. We will power these banners as a group. The role of the group is to enable our banners to serve their customers better.
We have a clear vision to build customer proposition for the future, e-commerce with stores at the center, more compact stores, OEB-led differentiation, a mobile-first experience, and a compelling services offer are the heart of this vision. A balanced local group operating model and agile culture will support this direction. We'll build a culture led by trust. We'll adopt a done is better than perfect mindset to test and learn. We will lead the industry with our responsible business practices. We'll be simpler and leaner. This means doing less, landing it faster, and reducing our cost and inventory. Let me now move to page 30 and bring this to life. We are an expert in home improvement that our banners address diverse customer needs. It is important that we fortify each banner's role and proposition. A more balanced local group operating model is key, as I have talked about.
We'll make sure our banners can take decision they need in order to serve their customers better. We have been working on clear priorities for all our banners. In the interest of time, let me pick up on two of them, Screwfix and Castorama France on page 31. Screwfix is a unique retail model. Customers genuinely value the proposition and returns are very strong. There is clear potential for further growth, and we have a turbo plan for Screwfix. Firstly, we plan to open more stores and to maximize our share in the U.K. and Ireland. We are constantly looking at the return on investment from new stores and improving store operations. This is allowing us to unlock new locations more profitably. We also have plans to significantly improve the Screwfix proposition with targeted price investments, which we started in 2019, extending ranges and innovative delivery options.
There is also a large opportunity for Screwfix to expand internationally. We are confident that this model can work outside the U.K., and we are looking at asset-light ways to start with. We are starting to prove this in Ireland, and I can confirm that the opportunities are clear, but today is too early to share all the details. I am fully committed to investing in Screwfix. Castorama France has been underperforming for many years. My view is that some of the issues are Castorama specific and some have been inflicted by the group strategy. For example, fewer trading events, the listing of higher-end products, and IT and supply chain disruption. On the positive side, we can build on Castorama enduring brand equity. The Castorama brand reputation has also improved given their responsible actions and agility during the crisis.
As mentioned earlier, our near-term priority is to fix the basics in the team structure, IT, and availability. As you saw, we have early encouraging results. Medium term, we must position Castorama to grow again. We are taking e-commerce very seriously, and we made significant progress during COVID-19. We will strengthen our ranges through OEB and with broader choice. We will reintroduce trading events and reinvest in services. In parallel, we will drive cost and inventory reduction. Let me also briefly comment on Iberia here. While there has been interest in the business, we have reviewed the original decision to exit. Brico Dépôt is well positioned as a discounter in the market, and we believe our new strategic direction can take this already profitable business forward.
It is important for our distinct banners to have their own priorities, but we'll continue to unlock value from doing things together as a group. As I said, there are many achievements from the past years on which we can build on. For example, OEB, our sourcing offices, our SAP IT platforms, our shared service center in Poland. These are our group sources of power, as outlined on page 32. Let me start with our own exclusive brands. We have strong design and sourcing capabilities in place and already developed very successful own exclusive brands. They allow us to offer differentiation, great value, and will bring growth and better margin. Linked to this, we have a strong sourcing and buying organization on which we can build further. Onto technology, it is critical to use the scale of the group to invest together in strong technology platforms.
It will remain an important area of investment in the future, like for many other retailers. As a group, we are able to strike global partnerships in this field. Next is how we will use group shared services, and we see further opportunities here. We are also establishing several Kingfisher Centers of Excellence to set the right ambition and accelerate innovation in key strategic areas. This includes e-commerce, digital customer journeys, customer data, store concepts, services, and supply chain. We speak here about very small teams of experts who can move fast. Lastly, our group gives a framework for our people, our culture, and our values, which is a strength. This is a role of the group. Our new plan, as on page 33, has two different horizons. In 2020, our immediate priority is to fix the business and to manage COVID-19, which will require focus and discipline.
Looking further forward, we also have seven strategic priorities to simplify our business and bring Kingfisher back to growth. This is where we will put our time, energy, and resources. As I mentioned, we have launched task forces to redesign the commercial and IT operating model. Let me now give you some colors on the other priorities. To page 34, we have a clear vision for how we will build tomorrow's customer propositions. This vision is informed by the shifts that we see in the market and customer needs. A key priority is to grow e-commerce sales fast. Here there are two significant shifts in our strategy. The first one is that we will leverage our stores as a primary way of picking and fulfilling orders, including click and collect, drive-through, lockers, and same-day, next-day home deliveries.
The past couple of months, we have made rapid progress on this front, and we need to sustain it. The second shift is that we will fully prioritize the rollout of the group e-commerce technology stack. In addition, looking to the future, we are also beginning to explore the potential for a marketplace offering, but it is very early days. Next is about building a mobile and service-led customer experience. Services are another reason why stores will remain key in our sector, and our offer must be compelling. This includes making sure we are market leading on existing services such as timber cutting and painting, but also evolving our offer to a full suite of design, planning, visualization, and installation services. We'll also lead with mobile and leverage customer data and analytics to improve how we serve customers.
Our own exclusive brands are also a key part of this vision. We continue to grow our OEB participation from a base of 39% today. To do this, we would shift our focus from unification of ranges toward own exclusive branded products, which deliver even better value for money to our customers, which is important as we enter a tough economic cycle. We'll make sure our OEB portfolio is supporting each banner's proposition for DIY, for trade, and for discounter banners. We will test compact store concepts and adapt our store footprint. We already have high ROI new store opportunities that we continue to invest in, especially Screwfix in Poland. Beyond this, we are increasing our trials of compact store concepts. We are also aware our big box stores will need to evolve. This will include e-commerce, dark store space, customer experience and advice, and right sizing when required.
Finally, we are exploring store-in-store concession and franchise partnerships. On page 35, we have a clear cost and inventory reduction program, and we are committed to it. As you can see, it covers the full range of operating costs at group and in our banners. On buying and sourcing, Kingfisher delivered efficiencies in the past, and there is further potential for upside. We renew strategic partnerships with the top 20, 30 international brands, drive engineering and sourcing benefits in our own exclusive brands, and reduce the level of clearance in the business. Significant excess inventory has been built up over the years, and we have a clear plan to reduce it. Moving to page 36, Kingfisher has a long history of leading the industry on responsible business practices. I would like to take this a step further. We have chosen four areas of focus.
One, to help tackle climate change by becoming forest positive by 2025. Two, to help make greener, healthier homes affordable. Three, to contribute to fixing bad housing. Four, to become an even more inclusive company by building skills for life. We have clear targets associated with each of these areas, as you can see on the slide. For the first time, we are linking a part of our bonus incentives to these commitments. To page 37, we started to prepare our new plan before the COVID-19 crisis. Reflecting on the last three months, I'm convinced that COVID-19 reinforces our strategic direction. In fact, it pushes us to be bolder. Let me start with our customers. As people emerge from confinement into economic downturn, we will see a fresh search for value.
We already offer a price index of 100 or less versus closest competitors in all key banners, and we will use the power of our OEB and our discounter banners to do more. Customers have new home improvement needs as they spend more time at home, new ways to use their space or adjust to long-term working from home. Of course, being recognized as a responsible business is even more important than before. We have seen a further acceleration towards online. The past few weeks have proven the importance of putting stores at the center of e-commerce, and this is a key reason behind our strong e-commerce across banners during the crisis. It is more important than ever to be lean and focused. We must retain the agility we have shown during the crisis.
This means we must test and learn fast and empowering our banners has been a real source of this agility. In parallel, COVID-19 pushes us to be bolder in our existing cost reduction plans. Moving to page 38. Beyond our immediate priorities, let me be clear that in retail, everything starts with supply and growth. Our ongoing financial priorities are firstly to focus on sales growth in all retail banners. We will also drive benefits from buying, sourcing, and product development, and in parallel, reduce cost and inventory. At the end, our focus will be to grow like-for-like sales and absolute retail profit. Capital investment will be subject to strict returns criteria. We aim to maintain an investment-grade credit rating. We recognize the importance of dividends to shareholders, and we will review this as COVID-related impacts become clearer. Finally, to page 39.
Let me tell you the things I really want you to take away. Our near-term priority is still managing the impact of COVID-19 on our colleagues, our customers, and our operations. We are very mindful of the significant uncertainty that exists, and we are working hard to be prepared for all scenarios. Looking forward, I believe that the opportunity for Kingfisher is significant. The home improvement market is a good market to be in, and Kingfisher has many strengths. Our banners are not the same, and this is a strength. We have a clear new strategic direction, Powered by Kingfisher. I'm more convinced by the direction after the few past weeks of managing through this crisis with our teams. We have a strong new group executive team. We are committed to operate with new standard of execution discipline. This will mean remaining focused on the most high-value initiatives.
As you have seen this morning, our early actions have delivered encouraging results. There is much to do, but we are excited about the opportunities that are ahead of us, and as a team, we are committed to returning Kingfisher to growth. Thank you for your time. I would now like to invite any questions. Over to you, operator.
We will take our first question from Richard Chamberlain from RBC. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you very much. Morning, guys. I've got three questions, if that's all right. First one's on availability. I wonder if you can give a bit more color on how that has improved year to date, maybe give some idea of what metrics you're looking at for in-store availability and some idea of further upside to come. The second one is on the SAP rollout. I think you said that you paused it for Brico Dépôt. I wondered when you anticipate finishing the global or the full rollout of SAP. The third one is on Romania. It sounds like you've changed the longer term projections, and I wondered what the cost saving from the consolidation of the two distribution centers in Romania will be this year. Thanks very much.
Yeah, thank you, Richard. Let me start with the two first question, and Bernard will comment on the last one. I would say there are two period of time. I would say up to March, we clearly had a big improvement in our availability, especially in France. I think it was due to IT disruption and as well, lack of management capabilities in France. We recruited many additional managers. We spent a lot of time and energy on that, and the availability level before COVID reached back about 98% for Casto and Brico in France. That's part of the good results of the sale in France, is a clear improvement in our availability. I think you know the KPI, our standard one is really availability in stores.
Usually, we follow up the total range, or we follow the top 1,000 or top 500 best sellers, and we follow that on a weekly basis. I would say after COVID, we are today in a situation when we have extremely polarized demand. Our, I would say, availability is well under control, but we could have, for very specific categories and for very specific markets today, some availability issue that's really focused on limited number of categories. On SAP, you are right. We consider the rollout of SAP in France was delayed, was late, was, let's say, facing several issues. For this reason, we have decided to pause Brico Dépôt for 12 months and to have all the energy of the teams to Castorama in France. I'm happy to see that the rollout of SAP in Castorama now is a question of weeks or months.
We will restart Brico Dépôt rollout in France early 2021. SAP implementation has been fully done in Poland and Romania now. Finally, Brico Dépôt will be the last banners for which we will implement SAP. In my view, I think we have a good template. We have more at the, let's say, rollout issues, execution issues, but the basic template of the SAP is rather good. One word on Romania, and then I'll leave it to Bernard. Indeed, following the acquisition of Praktiker, part of the job we have to do is to finalize the integration. We have now SAP in Romania in all the stores, Brico and now Praktiker. All the Praktiker became Brico. We are as well working on indeed our supply chain.
We have two distribution center, and we have the plan before the end of this year, to merge those two DCs in Romania.
Yes, Richard, just to give a little bit more color. As you can imagine, the impairment that we took, it's mainly goodwill and certain store assets really related to the Praktiker acquisition. I think if you look at the business, the losses were really driven by Praktiker. Also required some integration costs, as mentioned, rebrand, range implementation, some back office implementation. I think the good news is that all that is now behind us. It's all progressing well. It's all been rebranded Brico Dépôt, selling the same products. I think we're in a good position. Now we expect still the business to be somewhat loss-making this year, but trending well to a break-even position and then profit.
Wonderful. Thanks, guys.
Next question comes from Simon Irwin from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Morning, gentlemen. Thanks for the presentation. Three questions for you. The first is the store pick model and how that's going to work if you are going to move towards more compact stores with limited range, as those two appear to be somewhat contradictory. The second is just around stores generally, is that if I've been to them recently, they feel very under-invested, which I guess is because the business hadn't committed to stores. Do you recognize that, and is there a plan to start reinvesting in those stores that you want to keep? The third is on range. Obviously, you seem to be committing to the effect of the kind of unique element of ranges. We've heard endlessly about which bits have worked. We haven't really heard is what bits haven't worked.
Can you just talk us through some examples of ranges that haven't worked and what you think you can do about them?
Yeah. Thank you, Simon. Yeah, I can come to your question. I think the first one is around store picking, and that's a topic that is very close to my heart. I've been lucky to spend several years in China. That's something we learn in China, even in food retail, is that you can go very far with a store picking proposition in e-commerce. That's probably what helped us so much during the crisis is, from day one, we have decided to accelerate the store picking proposition because at the end, you have all the inventories, you have all the range, you can do a very efficient click and collect. Furthermore, in the medium term, you will have more trends around the, what I call the fast home delivery. It's the same day delivery or few hours delivery.
I'm strongly convinced what I saw, what you see in China, in the United States, what we have been doing at Kingfisher the past weeks, that you can go very far in the store picking proposition. I can tell you that today we are above 50% of the orders today are done with click and collect. I think it's not contradictory with compact stores. Even in compact stores, you have thousands of SKU. They are very flexible model. You can have a store-by-store, a slightly different route to market and organization. Even with compact store, the store picking organization can be very efficient. Remind you that if you look at Screwfix, it's probably our most powerful format for store picking. We are speaking about 1,000 sq m store and small warehouse.
I'm strongly convinced that we can go far, and the fact that we are moving to a bit more compact store is at all not an issue. For CapEx, I think you're right. What I said previously is that we were a bit too much product-led and not enough retail-led. It means we dedicated a big part of CapEx to range reviews. Obviously, we need to continue to do range reviews. We need to continue to push our new products. I think it's not balanced enough, and we need to, let's say, within the CapEx envelope you saw the past year, to dedicate a greater proportion of our CapEx to store maintenance. On ranges as well, it's a very key topic. I've been mentioning that we need to do things together, but I don't believe we should become one banner.
The different banner, they have different ranges and different size of ranges. Brico Dépôt in France, we consider that around 15,000, 16,000 SKU is correct because it's a discounter. When you go to Castorama or to B&Q, we speak about 40,000, 50,000 SKU. I strongly believe that in the long run, to have powerful OEB is a key role in retail, and it will help us to differentiate. OEB can be unique, but can be as well value for money. When we say unique, it's really special design, a very innovative component or functionality. You could have a tap that save water. We have unique OEB, but we have as well value for money OEB. You have OEBs that are a fantastic value for money balance, and that's as well part of our differentiation.
On the other side, I don't believe anymore that to run for unification, absolute unification of range is the right direction. We will have a core range across our banners, but we need to let the local flexibility to B&Q or to Spain or to France to adopt local brands. I have in mind a British paint brand that have been decided to be implemented all across our banners that sell very well in the U.K., but that sell only in the U.K. It was part of a unified range, but it did not fit with the local customer needs. Unification is a tool. It cannot be the target. The target is always the customer, and that's probably the key topic here, is the strategy should start with the customer. The group is a tool, is our resources to support the customer proposition.
The ultimate goal of the strategy cannot be to build a group. The ultimate goal of a strategy is to bring a better customer proposition.
Very clear. Thank you.
Next question comes from Warwick Okines from Exane. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. I've got three questions as well, please. My first question is on B&Q. You mentioned on page 31, relaunching TradePoint. It's something that's hardly been mentioned in the last five years. Could you talk a little bit more about what you see for the TradePoint, which I'm guessing is still about 20% of B&Q overall? The second question is that the previous management team a year ago set out quite a radical role for the convenience format stores. I was just wondering if you could flesh out a little bit more how you see the convenience format going forward. The third question is following on from the last one. You've been clear about how you think about ranges in terms of unique and unified.
Just in terms of the number of SKUs across the whole business, do you think that continues to need to be rationalized, or do you think there is actually some scope for increasing the SKU count as you move more local? Thank you.
Thank you, Warwick. I believe that TradePoint is important for us, and your comment is very good. It means we never mentioned TradePoint recently because it was not at the center of the Kingfisher strategy. To come back to my previous point, we start with customers. We start with different customer needs. Part of our customer, they are pro. They go to Screwfix, but they go as well to TradePoint. We want to revitalize TradePoint inside B&Q. I must say, the past weeks, during COVID, we had very encouraging results for TradePoints. You are right that we are about 15%-20% of B&Q sales are made through TradePoints. I think there are different categories than Screwfix. You have more heavy products, so we can target different customer proposition.
As you understand, in my view, we need to push all our different banners, and TradePoint is one of them. Convenience store and overall smaller format is as well a key priority. We strongly believe that in the long run, a big part of retail will be around smaller formats. I think in home improvement, many retailers are working on it. I still believe it's a key topic for us. What I wish here as well is to empower our banners to have more trials. You cannot just have one trials in the U.K. and wait for the results to take lessons for the full group. We will do more trials. It will be done in a coordinated way by the different countries and banners. We might have slightly different solution, and we will learn from them.
Indeed, I strongly believe that we need to find a good compact or express format in home improvement. Another comment on that, I believe as well on the medium box. We usually say we have big box, and we have convenience stores. Interestingly, if you look at B&Q, a large part of B&Q are what I would qualify medium boxes that are a very efficient and successful model, and that's a good proportion of the B&Q store. You could have different size of store, depending on the catchment areas. On the range, I would say there are a lot of plus and minus in my answer. Sorry, I will be a bit specific, maybe too complex, but when you are on discount brand like Brico Dépôt, you need to stay on short ranges. Today, probably, we have pushed Brico Dépôt too high.
The ranges of Brico Dépôt should come back to a slightly lower number. On the opposite, when you are on choice, like B&Q and Casto, as you know, we wanted to become one, that we have pushed Casto and B&Q to reduce their ranges, and I think it's not the right direction. We need to allow B&Q and even more Casto France to increase a bit their ranges, because today, the choice level we have, for example, in Casto in France is not good, is not enough. At the same time, when I look at my inventory program, you always need to clean regularly your ranges because you have a slow-moving item, you have a SKU with a very small level of sales. Those SKU, you need constantly to clean part of your ranges to, let's say, to stay on the active SKU.
I would say overall, I would not expect a massive increase. I would say for some of the banners, typically Castorama in France, B&Q, we are a bit too low at the moment.
Let me just expand a little bit on the last point. Obviously, a subject close to my heart, cost and inventory. If you look at the SKUs, we've got about 200,000 active SKUs. Of those, we probably have 20,000-25,000 which we don't sell. We've got another 60,000 where we sell less than 1% of our sales. Indeed, GBP 75 million-GBP 100 million about tied up in inventory there, where there's a lot that we can do to offset maybe a range expansion somewhere else. In addition, I think if your point is to the overall inventory level, clearly it's higher than we want.
The stock days have increased in the last couple of years. We've got a good plan together with Martin Lee, who's responsible for our supply chain, to not only address the shorter-term disruptions which have caused some of that, but also to look at the ranging and deployment, which I just discussed. Also at planning, forecasting, making use of the best tools so that we control even better the purchases quantities and our lead time. I think it's definitely on our list and there's an opportunity there.
Thank you. That's very helpful.
Next question is from Geoff Ruddell from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. A few questions, please. Most of them very quick. The first couple of quick ones, could you just give us some guidance on CapEx for this year? I understand it's going to be down, but just what sort of level you're currently envisaging. Secondly, should we expect more freehold sales over the next few years? If so, roughly what sort of quantum? Thirdly, on inventory levels, how big is the opportunity to free up capital from inventory over the next few years? If you could just give us some sort of idea of how much you think you can reduce it. Finally, a sort of slightly more qualitative question. In terms of the buying function, obviously the buying function was centralized and a single buying function was created under the One Kingfisher strategy.
Do you think that is the right way for the group to run going forwards, given the greater freedom within the individual business units to have their own ranging? Thank you.
Okay. Hi, Geoff. Let me start with the CapEx. Historically, we're investing about 3% or around GBP 350 million. We can do a lot for that. This year we're prioritizing. I would say if you ask me a question a month ago, I'd be a lot higher. With the change duration, we're still prioritizing. We've got group investment committee to look at everything that comes by. I couldn't give you the exact answer within that prioritization because we also want to be able to adapt if things turn less good again. It is likely to be lower than what we had, but obviously, we keep watching it on a regular basis. In terms of the freehold sales , obviously, we look at opportunities when they get there, obviously trading off what to do with the business.
You should see some of that coming through, but nothing we can guide you on today. In terms of the inventory reduction, obviously, we've got some plans there. If you look at historically in 2016, 2017, we were at about GBP 2.2 billion. If you look at this year, we're at GBP 2.5 billion in stock days have gone from 107 to 127. Now, some of that obviously is the reason for that we changed the supply chain model. There's more far sourcing, which impacts that. That's more difficult to do away with. I think in that context, there's more to be done. If you look at the historic inventory level, questions whether we can get there, but it gives you some of the differences that we're looking to bridge.
A few words on the buying and the sourcing. I consider we can build on what has been done the past four years. I think a very good job has been done on sourcing. We have built over years eight group sourcing offices in Asia, in Turkey, in Central Europe, in Western Europe. Obviously, when you are relying on sourcing for our private label, and private label is 40% of our sales. All that is done together. We have engineering teams. We have quality teams all across those countries to control and to work with our suppliers. When you ask typical international large suppliers, it will be managed by the group. We mentioned in the page 35 of the presentation that we want to build more long-term partnership with our top 20, 30 brands.
There are large quantity of suppliers that are all across our country, and this could be managed at group level. When you are only in the U.K., when you are only in Poland, we will be more flexible, and we rely more on the banners for all the local purchasing.
Our next question comes from Anne Critchlow from Societe Generale. Please go ahead.
Thanks. One question from me, please. What is your view on do it for me? Are you thinking of bringing installation services back to any formats in the medium term?
Thank you for the question, Anne. First, indeed, as I mentioned, there is a very gradual shift to do it for me. It is a trend, all the survey we did recently that this shift is rather gradual. We have brands for the pro. We have Screwfix. I mentioned TradePoint. If you look at some of our countries, for example, in Poland, the proportion of pro going to our stores is significant. I think we wish to address the do it for me market as a DIY market. I'm a strong believer in services. When you are in big box like Castorama, B&Q, or across our different countries, we need to have compelling service proposition. It's just part of our business.
I think here we will restart at B&Q in the U.K. installation for kitchen this year, and that's a priority for us, and I think that's just our business. We need to offer compelling services, in our main big boxes. Another area that is interesting and where we see interesting development is what I call service platforms. You have Internet platforms that can put in relationship tradespeople with customers. I think Kingfisher is well-positioned, with Screwfix, and with B&Q, for example, to think how we can bring together those two population. I think that's a topic, the service platform, on which we will do some work in the future.
Our next question comes from Kate Calvert from Investec. Please go ahead.
Morning, everyone. A slightly related question. The previous management did present this GoodHome future vision of DIY, one where the customer needs more project solutions. Is that your sort of view of the way you believe DIY will go? On another subject, in France, Casto and Brico. Could you talk about how you see the price propositions differing between the two brands going forward? A final question just on promotional strategy. It feels as if you're buying into a more promotional strategy going forward. Is this likely to impact future gross margin, or do you feel you can offset this with future buying efficiencies? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Kate. I start with GoodHome. For me, GoodHome is a good product brand. We have many OEB brands like GoodHome, like Erbauer, like SITE, like TITAN, and GoodHome is a great brand, but this is a product brand. Again, as I said previously, I don't believe that the world is one, that the customer are becoming one. The customer, they are different. We have different banner, and that's very good. I don't believe that GoodHome is the ultimate banner strategy. On the other side, I strongly believe on B&Q, on Screwfix, on Castorama, and Brico. On France, I believe we are lucky to have two different banners that are different.
Brico has already a very strong price positioning and is a typical discounter organization with low ranges, very efficient logistic organization, very efficient organization in France, overall lower cost base, limited services. That's really the DNA on which we can build. For me, Brico should dominate by the price, and we should keep our leadership on price for Brico in France and in Iberia. For me, the promotion in Brico is not the goal. We should have very strong permanent prices at Brico with arrivage. You need to know that arrivage is usually not permanent offer. They are spots, they are one-time and one-off promotion. Casto should differentiate for Brico, should differentiate on choice, on great service proposition, greater e-commerce proposition, and some trading events. We need, it's part of our business to create events when you are in a big box format.
On the margin, again, for me, you will have opportunities, and you will have additional trading events and probably price investments, for example, at Screwfix. We have opportunities, I think, on margin. I said we have good capabilities in buying and sourcing, on which we can build further. We will have our mix of OEB as we wish to grow the proportion of OEB, and our OEB are, as an average, higher margin than the average of the category. It will help for the margin mix. We'll have a bit less range reviews and then a bit less of clearance. Again, I will not guide on margin, but you have indeed, we want to be competitive overall. We want to have a bit more trading events. We will need to invest for some of our banner positioning, but we have opportunities on the other side.
Great. Thanks so much.
Next question is from Geoff Lowery from Redburn. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Morning, team. Two questions, please. Can you point us towards a non-food retailer globally who has attempted to run a multi-banner, multi-format, multi-customer, multi-geography business at scale and has driven it successfully? Second, when we think about Screwfix, you've obviously been on a journey of tactical price investment. Are you comfortable with that being a double-digit EBIT margin business, or is there a temptation to do more on margin to drive the overall sales potential of the format?
Yeah. Thank you, Geoff. Start with number one. It's very clear, the answer. You look at ADEO, they have more banners than us. In many countries, they have three banners. I don't want to give you all the name. You can look at that. There are many, many different banners, and they are creating more banners. Coming from food industry, usually you have very different banners when you speak about discounter, when you are on a premium niche. I think it's, on the contrary, a very common retail practice to be able to support different customer proposition. The world in the future will not be unique, will not be one. We are, in some ways, have to address the local customer proposition. This is on the opposite, a global trend.
I don't want to speak about consumer goods, but look at the consumer goods brands that are buying or developing additional local brands. I strongly believe that this is a trend you see in retail. We have diverse banners, but we need to be flexible enough, organized in our business model to power, to support those different banners. Screwfix, I think, is a fantastic business proposition. I can tell you that today we are below 100. The price index of Screwfix when we speak is below 100. We have very good price proposition at Screwfix, and we will keep it, and we will keep this leadership. I consider that Screwfix has many options in its customer proposition. We are constantly looking at new technologies, new ideas to improve our business model.
I just said previously that we intend to open more store at Screwfix, probably a bit more than what we thought one year ago, because when we always update our expansion software calculation, when we optimize our cost operating model, we discover that we can still open a bit more stores. I think Screwfix has enough resources, innovation to continue to be a very strong business model while being competitive and, I would say, stay below 100 on prices.
Who's in the peer group that you get to below GBP 100 on Screwfix pricing?
Well, you can guess that the main peer group is Toolstation. We are looking at all the trade that says a trade proposition.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Georgina Johanan from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Two questions from me, please. The first, just on market share. Since you've reopened your stores across markets, if you could just comment on how much share you think you've taken or not, as the case may be. I assume there are perhaps a number of, perhaps some of the smaller players that haven't reopened, anything you can share on that would be great. The second, just really how we should be thinking about the cost base next year and in the medium term, obviously lots of moving parts. You talked about COVID-related cost savings. You talked about more underlying cost savings in the business, and then presumably, there are also some costs going in near term related to maintaining health and safety around social distancing and so on.
If you could just help us think about how we should be putting all of that together, please. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Georgina. I start with the market share. If I look at the U.K., we don't have home improvement market shares. I will not speak about competitors. I think we decided to close our store on day one and to rely on click and collect and home delivery. I think we did that overnight. Really overnight, we had a click and collect and online proposition for stores, which was incredibly successful because we were up to four times growth. We decided to reopen our stores, and it is true that I think we have been the first one to reopen stores, big boxes in the U.K., in our sectors, with, I think, the very extremely well-organized health and safety measures. Screwfix on this side, the same thing.
Overnight, the first day of the confinement moved to a new click and collect model. Later on has been copied by some others. I've no market shares in the U.K. I think we were always early versus our competitors. In France, what I would say is we had very good trend before COVID. If you look at the Banque de France data for years, we have been far below the market. Since November 2019, we have very clear improvement. We are very close to the market. We even did better than the market in February. Starting from March, as we decided to close and some of the competitors in France stay open, you need to know that you have a lot of franchisee in home improvement in France.
Usually, they have one store, and they all stay open. It's difficult to really read the commercial performance in France in March, April, and May because I guess it's purely the local franchises that will gain market share versus ADEO and versus us. I'm very happy with the improvement in France up to mid-March. On the cost base, two comment. Obviously Bernard will complete. When I look on the five principles, I said on page 29, the fifth principle for us is simpler and leaner. You see how it's important for us to work on cost, to have a simpler organization, but as well to reduce our cost base. I can tell you we are strongly determined. I think we have opportunities ahead of us.
I think in the short term, and Bernard will give you the figures, obviously COVID bring a little bit more cost to operate because of the PPE we need to provide. Overall, I think we have a lot of cost opportunities. We have as well in the previous plan, some transformation costs that will fall away. I don't know, Bernard.
Sure.
If you want to comment on that.
Hi, Georgina. I think it's interesting question. Let me dissect it in two pieces. Short term related to COVID, obviously interesting for store closed and now very strongly selling. We need to see when is it going to stabilize, and we'll have a little bit better view. For now, PPE is costing us, we expect about GBP 25 million-GBP 30 million in the year. We do have some higher operating costs in the stores at checkout with the marshaling. Interestingly, what we do see, we took some pretty significant actions immediately when the COVID pandemic started in areas such as marketing, head office, IT, GNFR, which till now has helped us offset that. We're also hiring more people, given the sales and the summer. We'll see how that goes into the mix.
I think for now, we've seen a reasonable offset, but obviously need to see how that evolves in the rest of the year. For the longer term, simpler and leaner and growth of retail profit and in that equation, cost will be an important one. There are clear areas where we've seen those increase, supply chain, central support cost, IT, but also property. Those are all under review. That will contribute. There will be some offsets. We're still growing with our stores. There's still inflation. As Thierry said, there's some change cost that will have to incur. In the mix, we think all that should contribute to the improvement of our retail profits.
Thank you very much.
Next question is from Adam Cochrane from Citi. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. A few questions from my side. I'm a little bit unclear as to how we should measure your success in terms of this plan. Would you have any, at some stage, milestones to share on what you intend to deliver? I can't really get a feel for what you're targeting, how much it's going to cost, and how long it's going to take. If you think of an investor sitting there saying, how do we know if management is doing a good job compared to what they were expecting? Any thoughts on how we can help measure that, and maybe what some of your measures that you're targeting? Secondly, the staff turnover at Kingfisher has been, I would argue, high at the senior level in the last few years. Have you identified a cultural issue that's created this turnover in terms of senior staff?
If you have identified it, have you been able to change it? What are you going to do to get them all behind the new plan to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible? Finally, interestingly, you talked about doing less, but actually achieving it and getting things done. How does this fit in? You talk about doing less but getting it done, but the number of initiatives that you're outlining is actually quite a lot. Does that mean this program will take a large amount of time to actually achieve? Thanks.
Thank you, Adam. I think what I said is it starts with growth. I strongly believe that in retail, you always have to start with growth, with customer, with customer needs. At the end, like-for-like growth. I think for me, the first criteria on which we want to be measured is the top-line growth. Because of that, I would say the second or at the same level is the absolute retail profit in value. That's what is driving us today. I don't want to guide, and will not guide on the margin or cost ratio. I think we told you that costs inventory are one of our key priorities, and we are committed to that. We see opportunities for the margin, but we should start with growth, with sales. This should drive our profit in value.
I spoke about e-commerce, I spoke about OEB. You can guess we'll come back to you. We'll discuss about the OEB participation, our online, how much we do on click and collect, how much you order through mobile, et cetera. At the end, this is growth. You mentioned the turnover. I would say, I don't want to spend too much time on the past. I'm sorry. I think probably, when you do such a huge transformation, when you want finally to become One, you can expect that it's a major transformation, is a change of mindset for the team. Probably it explained that, and I am very happy that we built a new GE with a lot of strengths inside Kingfisher with some people coming from outside. When you are in the middle of the crisis, you see the new team.
You see how the banners reacted. I think because of starting from last year, we started to empower the banners to find the right level for the group to operate in a framework to support, but at the end, to let the banners be more agile and flexible. I think this is a reason for which we have been relatively successful the past weeks, and that's the spirit of accountability of the banners, of freedom, of agility, and somehow trust. It means we have to trust the teams. We don't need to control the teams. That's why I mentioned trust. This is probably the part of the culture I want to push in the future. Indeed, I want to do less. Again, I don't want to spend time on the number of initiatives we stopped. I want to do less.
We need to spend a lot of time on prioritization. I don't think when you look in detail that the number of actions that are mentioned are many. I think it will be done over time as well. I believe that it's more run race, short-term, three months, six months short-term actions, and when you are done with it, you move to the next one. During the crisis, the past weeks, it's what we have experienced, small number of priorities, extremely fast. Probably we are learning from the crisis here as well.
Just one follow-up on what you said there, like-for-like growth and absolute retail profit. If you had to choose between the two, either in the short and the medium term, is prioritizing like-for-like sales growth more important than margin expansion to deliver the absolute retail profit?
I think you need the momentum first, but the link between both are coming up in relatively short time, in my view, when I see the past week. You need the momentum first. You cannot say, "Well, I think about profit, I will discuss sales next year." We need the momentum of the top line first. Looking at the knowledge of the team the past weeks, I will not say there is years of discrepancy between both. No, I think we will drive both top line and retail profit in the future.
Thank you.
We will take our last question for today from Simon Bowler from Numis. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks. I hope this will be a quite quick one. First of all, could I just revisit Geoff's question earlier around kind of current, but also kind of more medium-term plans around capital expenditure? Sorry, the line was kind of particularly poor at that point. Secondly, can you give a sense on kind of cash exceptionals for this year and going forward? Just conscious in quite remember there would be helpful. Finally, to kind of reference back on a comment you made around new banners and so on. Is that something that's under consideration yourselves in terms of introducing new banners or acquiring kind of service providers that you can kind of fit into the business, or do you expect all of the strategy to be organic in nature?
Yes, thank you, Simon. Maybe I let Bernard start, I come back.
The man with the purse starts on CapEx. Look, I think we've got an exciting new strategy. Obviously, we want to underpin it with the right investments. We've got some great opportunity in Screwfix, in Poland, in e-commerce, and different areas. I can assure you one thing is that we're looking at everything very strictly. We've got a new group investment committee where, together with John Wartig, I really scrutinize all the investments and make sure that they're high return and high return on capital employed. Once that comes out, we've invested, as I said, historically at about 3%, about GBP 350 million. I think we can do a lot for that. That's the number I'm looking at. We're also looking at extracting cash from inventory as I just discussed, and working capital that we may put to use.
I think it's a little bit too early to tell. In terms of the cash exceptionals, what you see, it's puts and takes. We've got the proceeds from some of the freehold sales and sale and leaseback in the positive number, GBP 49 million. There are also some negatives. There's a big one in there in the settlement with the French tax authority of GBP 75 million. Then there's a little bit of transformation and restructuring around GBP 50 million-GBP 60 million. Then a number of smaller items that offsets the GBP 188 million of proceeds. If you look at this year, obviously, it's a very different year than we anticipated going into it. It will depend a little bit what actions we take on our different plans. If there were anything, it's more on the restructuring side that we would have to spend.
On the question on banners, on, let's say, other opportunities. I think first in my mind, we are an expert of home improvement. That's our knowledge, that's our business, and I think it's a good market. You understand I could not say one more time that a believer that it's good to have different customer proposition. I think because of this new strategy, Powered by Kingfisher, we're able to support different countries, different banners, different customer proposition. I think this is our core plan. What we presented today, it's our core plan. Is the plan we believe we have the most value creation. Obviously, we will always keep watching every additional opportunities. That's because we consider we are in the home improvement market, and that's our market. We will keep watching additional opportunities in this market. The core plan is the one we presented to you today.
Okay. That's great. Thank you.
Yes. Operator, just a few last words. Again, thank you for your time. We're very happy this morning to present our new strategy and to engage with you and to be able to answer your questions and get your comments. We are really glad with Bernard to have been able to do that this morning. Happy that hopefully in the future, we'll be able to meet face-to-face very soon. I hope you can feel our energy and passion. We are really convinced we have opportunities ahead of us. Personally, I'm more happy than ever to have joined this company and these great teams. I'm very energized and very convinced we will bring back customers to growth. Thank you, and to you very soon.