Recent reports on our website on Kingfisher, both an initiation and then a follow-up on their results. For today, we're going to go through the presentation, and then there'll be an opportunity for Q&A at the end. Please feel free to submit questions as we go through. Otherwise, for now, I will hand over to IR Director, Maj Nazir.
Thank you very much, Hannah. Appreciate that. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I am Majid Nazir, Investor Relations Director at Kingfisher, and I will be walking you through our results for the 12 months ended 31st of January 2025. At the end of the presentation, I will be more than happy to address any questions you might have. Before we get into it, over to slide three, I would like to remind you of the fundamentals of Kingfisher's investment case. First, we have number one and number two leading positions in our markets. Those markets, which are worth GBP 160 billion, have attractive and structural growth drivers. Second, our Powered by Kingfisher model gives us distinctive competitive advantages. We have diverse banners with formats and propositions that address different needs across trade and retail customers. As a group, we have scale.
We provide buying and sourcing synergies to our banners and leverage Kingfisher Group to invest in products and technology. Our own exclusive brands, which are 44% of our sales today, are industry leading and give us a powerful competitive advantage. Our leading-edge technology and e-commerce platforms provide our customers with both speed and choice. Finally, as you can see on the right-hand side of the slide, we drive market share gains through our strategic growth initiatives. Firstly, we're building out our exposure to trade customers, which is now very much a proven strategy. As a reminder, we see trade customers as more frequent visitors to our stores and e-commerce channels, spending more on average than retail customers, and relatively more resilient during economic cycles. Just over 30% of our sales come from trade customers today.
On e-commerce, we have an ambition to reach 30% sales penetration, and we're well on track to achieve that. We're at 19% today versus 8% just five years ago. With retail media, which is essentially facilitating advertising by our suppliers, we're targeting additional revenues equivalent to 3% of our e-commerce sales. We're opening new stores, primarily through the continued expansion of Screwfix, as well as the growth opportunities we see in Poland. Our medium-term target is for new stores to contribute sales growth of 1.5-2.5%. Bringing all these elements together, we're committed to our financial priorities, which you can see along the bottom of this slide. Turning now to our results for last year, on the next slide, there are four key things to highlight about our performance. Firstly, market share.
We see this as the key indicator of our progress, as it shows how our business is performing against our competitors, looking through and looking beyond macroeconomic trends. Kingfisher delivered market share gains in the U.K. and Ireland, and in France, and in Poland last year. That's the first time we've grown our share in all our key geographies at the same time in well over six years. Point number two, we've seen strong delivery in two key areas of the group's strategy: trade and e-commerce, which are powering our market share gains. Excluding Screwfix, our trade sales penetration grew by 4.9 percentage points last year to 17.9%, supported by the rapid development of our trade propositions, especially in France and in Poland. As I mentioned, our e-commerce sales penetration is now at 19%, up 1.6 points versus the previous year.
That is partly driven by our successful marketplaces, which are now live in all markets. As a quick reminder, marketplaces mean that we facilitate the sales of our carefully curated third-party product ranges through our e-commerce channels, and we take a commission from those sales. These are two group-led strategic initiatives that we successfully implemented in the U.K. first at B&Q and Screwfix. They are the blueprint for Kingfisher's strategy, and we are now actively rolling out that recipe for success to all our other markets, and a bit more on that later on. At the same time, we are accelerating our restructuring plan at Castorama France. As a reminder, we have 94 Castorama stores in total, and last year we said that we were looking to address about one-third of that estate, which we believe is underperforming.
By the end of this financial year, we will have completed, or be in the process of completing, works on 24 of those stores. With the group's financial performance, we stayed disciplined against a challenging market backdrop. Our adjusted profit before tax and free cash flow was in line with, or ahead of, the initial guidance we set last year. Last but not least, we have a strong grip on the operational levers of our business. Our gross margin was up 50 basis points last year, and as guided, we delivered GBP 120 million of permanent cost reductions. We also reduced inventory by GBP 107 million. Overall, Kingfisher is in its best operational shape for years, and we remain confident about the growth opportunities in our business.
If we turn now to the next slide and the key financial highlights for the year, total sales for the group in constant currency were 0.8% lower, with LFL sales declining 1.7%. We delivered a gross margin of 37.3%, up 50 basis points versus the previous year. Adjusted PBT was GBP 528 million, decreasing 7% versus the previous year, and group statutory before tax was GBP 307 million, reflecting non-cash impairments in some of our stores and goodwill. Our free cash flow was strong at GBP 511 million. Our net debt, which is mainly property leases, was just over GBP 2 billion, with net leverage at 1.6 times EBITDA. We returned GBP 453 million to shareholders via dividends and share buybacks, up 14% on the previous year. We proposed a full-year dividend of 1 2.40 pence, in line with last year.
Given our strong free cash flow and confidence in future cash generation, we announced a new GBP 300 million share buyback program, of which the first tranche started yesterday. Turning now to sales across our categories. Onto the next slide. In our core categories, which represented 67% of our sales last year, two-thirds of our sales, we saw an improving trend through the year, driven by repair, maintenance, and renovation activity. Overall core LFL sales were 1.1% lower across the year, with the second half showing an improved performance, with LFL at minus 0.3%. LFL sales from big-ticket categories, which include kitchens and bathrooms, were 4.5% lower for the year, reflecting broader market weakness. In Q4, we saw some encouraging big-ticket trends across all our key markets, with LFL sales up 1.3%, supported by successful new kitchen and bathroom range reviews.
Our seasonal sales were relatively resilient during the year, bar the impact in Q2 of unfavorable weather. For the group overall, we saw flat retail price inflation, and overall volumes were lower year on year. Significantly, we saw an improving underlying trend in our core category volumes as we move through 2024. Let me now quickly walk you through the performance across our regions, starting with the U.K. and Ireland here on slide seven. Our U.K. and Ireland businesses delivered total sales of GBP 6.5 billion, up 1.2%, and LFL sales up 0.2%. Screwfix, B&Q, and B&Q's trade-focused banner TradePoint all delivered market share gains in the year. These gains were driven by strong performances across its e-commerce, trade and e-commerce channels. Gross margin for the U.K. and Ireland increased by 20 basis points, and operating costs increased by 2.1%.
Retail profit for the U.K. and Ireland was 0.6% higher at GBP 558 million, with a retail operating margin of 8.6%, 10 basis points lower than the prior year. To slide eight, and in France, our banners delivered total sales of GBP 3.9 billion. LFL sales were 6.2% lower amidst a weak home improvement market, which declined by over 7% in the year. Both banners gained market share, driven by strong new range launches and growth in trade customer sales. At Castorama, our LFL sales were lower by 6.6% for the year. Sales trends improved in the second half across all categories. At Brico Dépôt, LFL sales were 5.7% lower, with big-ticket sales seeing a notable pickup in Q4. Brico made strong progress in developing its trade proposition, with sales penetration reaching 12.8% in January, up 4.2 percentage points within the year.
Gross margin for France increased by 80 basis points, and operating costs were tightly managed, decreasing by 1.6% year on year. Overall, the French retail profit was GBP 95 million, with the margin 80 basis points lower at 2.4%. Over to slide nine now, and Poland delivered total sales of GBP 1.8 billion, up 3.2%, supported by the opening of five new stores and market share gains. LFL sales were marginally down by 0.1%. Like our other markets, Poland has made good progress driving its trade business. The business also successfully launched its e-commerce marketplace in January of this year, with positive early results. Poland's retail profit margin increased by 20 basis points to 5.1%.
Looking briefly now at our other international segment on slide 10, the main thing to flag here is that in December, we announced the sale of our Romanian business for an enterprise value of EUR 70 million, and that's equivalent to around GBP 58 million. That sale was expected to complete in H1 of this year. Turning now to group profit on slide 11, and starting from the left of this slide, lower LFL sales at a constant gross margin rate contributed to GBP 85 million of profit decline. This was largely offset by a gross margin rate improvement of 50 basis points, which added GBP 60 million to profit. The impact of staff pay rate inflation was GBP 94 million, with an equal weighting across the first and second half of the year. Technology and other cost increases were GBP 64 million, driven by higher technology investments in H2.
We delivered on our guidance of GBP 120 million of structural or permanent cost savings, which is spread across the three columns marked with an asterisk. Business rates refunds at B&Q were GBP 33 million, and the ineffective FX hedges in the prior year resulted in a GBP 10 million year-on-year benefit. Our central and net finance costs were GBP 3 million lower, and finally, our share of the Koçtaş JV was GBP 14 million lower year-on-year. A key strength of the business, of our business, is our strong cash generation, as you can see on this slide. Starting on the left, we generated earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization of just under GBP 1.3 billion. Good work has been done on inventory management, which drove a working capital inflow of GBP 108 million.
Net rent paid was GBP 512 million, and tax, interest, and other cash outflows were GBP 58 million, including GBP 23 million of tax phasing benefits and refunds. Our capital expenditure was GBP 317 million, representing 2.5% of our sales. Overall, free cash flow for the year was GBP 511 million. As you can see there on the right-hand side, we paid ordinary dividends of GBP 228 million and delivered a further GBP 225 million of share buybacks. If we turn now to slide 13, I want to remind you that Kingfisher has a strong balance sheet, which we maintain through our disciplined capital allocation framework. Our priority is investment in organic growth, where we see a compelling return profile. We target CapEx of around 3% of sales per year on average.
We aim to grow our dividend progressively over time, reflecting our firm focus of growing EPS, with a target for dividend cover in the range of 2.25-2.75 times, and that equates to a target payout ratio of between 36% and 44%. Kingfisher has a strong track record of returning surplus capital to shareholders, with GBP 1.9 billion returned to shareholders since 2021 via dividends and buybacks. That represents just over 40% of our current market capitalization. As we look to the year ahead, we will maintain our laser focus on cost discipline and cash generation, and as we set out on this slide, we have multiple gross margin opportunities, including in buying, sourcing, and logistics. On OpEx and inventory, we have programs already underway to unlock further savings in the year ahead. Let me now turn to the outlook and guidance for the financial year ahead on slide 15.
First of all, with our market growth scenarios, in the U.K. and Ireland, we observe a relatively resilient consumer supporting repairs, maintenance, and existing home renovation. However, we remain mindful of the near-term uncertainties facing households. Our outlook for the U.K. home improvement market in 2025 is somewhere between flat and low single-digit % growth year-on-year. In France, while repairs and maintenance activity is also supportive, we are and we remain cautious on consumer sentiment and the housing market in the near term. Our home improvement market outlook is for a low to mid-single-digit % decline in a low case and flat year-on-year in a high case. Finally, in Poland, while consumers expect to see real wage growth in 2025, we're mindful of the uncertainties continuing to face households. In the very near term, we see current geopolitical factors having an adverse impact on the Polish consumer.
For the year as a whole, we expect the home improvement market in Poland to be somewhere between a low single-digit % decline and low single-digit % growth year-on-year. On profit, we expect fully adjusted profit before tax of between GBP 480 million-GBP 540 million. We've started this year facing a GBP 33 million headwind from the business rates refunds of last year, but we expect GBP 10 million benefit from the sale of Romania. With regards to higher wages, inflation, and taxes this year, we expect to fully offset these through gross margin and OpEx mitigations. On free cash flow, we expect between GBP 420 million-GBP 480 million, supported by further inventory reductions. The Board and the management team remain confident in the cash generation capabilities of the business, which underpins our new GBP 300 million share buyback program.
Let me now, on slide 16, talk you through the progress we're making against our strategic objectives. This slide outlines how we've grown our market share in all key regions last year. First of all, we continue to strengthen our core proposition. We maintained our strong price indices, supported by effective management of our product costs. We also maintained high stock availability, driven by smarter inventory and logistics management. We've leveraged the power of our own brands to strengthen product ranges through successful range reviews at many of our banners. In parallel, as you can see on the right, we're leveraging the group strategic growth drivers that I highlighted at the start of this presentation. Over the next few slides, I'll cover the success we've seen with these initiatives in the U.K. and then how we're accelerating the rollout in all our other markets.
Slide 17, and let's look first at how B&Q's TradePoint banner has benefited from the group strategy. Our group plan centers around six key pillars to develop a compelling proposition for tradespeople: trade-specific ranges, dedicated new loyalty programs, our focus on people, value-add services, digital, and stores. Just a reminder that you can find TradePoint within two-thirds of B&Q's estate now. That's just over 200 stores. Importantly, the plan leverages our assets, pushes up store sales densities with limited to no CapEx. TradePoint achieved strong market share gains last year, and its sales now represent 23.4% of B&Q, and that's nearly five percentage points more than 2019. TradePoint now has 1.4 million active trade customers; that's strongly up year-on-year. We're now finding ways to expand TradePoint even further into some of our smaller stores, leveraging click and collect.
To slide 18, and we've applied that group framework now in France and in Poland, and we're seeing strong results. In France, as I mentioned earlier, the trade penetration at Brico Dépôt is now at 12.8%, and that's up by 4.2 percentage points since early last year. That's thanks to the rollout of dedicated trade service desks and colleagues across all stores, and a popular new loyalty program and mobile app. At Castorama, we've now decided to accelerate the rollout of our trade customer proposition; it's called Casto Pro, to the entire Castorama store network, following a successful trial in eight stores. In Poland, we've seen impressive growth in trade sales, growing by 19 percentage points to 24.5% in the last year.
This was supported by Castorama's new trade loyalty program, which saw nearly 1,000 customer sign-ups per day last year, and the introduction of dedicated Casto Pro trade zones, and that follows a similar concept to TradePoint in the U.K. The group has provided support to all countries, for example, through the introduction of new trade-specific OEB ranges and the technology to support new digital capabilities. We're really excited about the trade opportunity in France and in Poland, and that's already supporting market share gains in both countries. Over the medium term, the ambition is to double trade sales penetration in France and achieve a trade sales penetration of at least 30% in Poland. The slide 19, and similar to trade, the group has provided the blueprint for profitable e-commerce growth in the first instance with our U.K. banners.
In five years, B&Q's e-commerce sales penetration has tripled to 15%, while at Screwfix, penetration has gone from 33% to 58%. Our group e-commerce strategy is defined by two things: speed and choice. With speed, our national coverage enables us to fulfill orders quickly through digital hubs and a market-leading click and collect offering. We have decided to largely rely on store picking, which facilitates 93% of our first-party e-commerce orders. Secondly, choice. At B&Q, GBP 309 million of sales are from marketplace, and that represents 41% of B&Q's e-commerce sales. We have significantly extended the number of products available, with 2.1 million SKUs now available on B&Q's website, diy.com. At Screwfix, the available range of first-party products has now extended to 72,000 SKUs. Here on slide 20, we are applying the group's proven e-commerce framework across France and Poland.
Castorama France has grown from an e-commerce sales penetration of 2% in 2019 to 7% last year. As with B&Q three years ago, we expect Castorama's online sales to move up quickly following the launch of its marketplace platform in Q1 of last year, and that is already up to 14% of Castorama's e-commerce sales. In addition, 10% of Castorama's online sales now originate through its AI virtual assistant called Hello Casto, and that was developed by Kingfisher and launched at Castorama in 2023. With marketplaces now live in all our markets, our focus this year is to scale up the number of SKUs to accelerate the onboarding of cross-border merchants and to start offering click and collect for certain marketplace products. Our target is for group e-commerce sales to reach 30% of total sales, with one-third of that coming from marketplace.
On slide 21 now, and the opportunity for Kingfisher in data and retail media, which we're now scaling up across all markets. These initiatives started three years ago and are having a tangible impact on sales, margin, and cash. I'd like to highlight that our AI-led market and promotion solutions, which were built by the group and first deployed at B&Q last year, these solutions have led to a significant improvement to B&Q's clearance product margins, as well as a more efficient sell-through of its stock. Our next priority is to quickly expand these solutions in France and Poland, with implementation already underway at Castorama France. We're also continuing to scale our retail media proposition, making big strides over the last year. So far, the return on advertising spend that we're generating for over 500 vendors and marketplace merchants is above 600%, and that's significantly ahead of industry averages.
Our ambition is for retail media income to reach up to 3% of the group's total e-commerce sales. We believe that's a very reasonable target given the success we're witnessing in U.S. non-food retail, where retail media is perhaps one step more advanced than the U.K. and Europe. Turning now to slide 22, and before we discuss the Screwfix rollout in France, I'd like to remind you all of the proposition that we've built in the U.K. and its runway for growth. Screwfix is a proven model that delivers industry-leading returns on capital employed. With 952 stores and 58% e-commerce sales penetration, Screwfix possesses arguably the strongest omnichannel proposition in U.K. general retail. Over the last five years, sales at Screwfix have gone from GBP 1.8 billion to GBP 2.6 billion, and that's a CAGR of 7.6%. Over 80% of these sales come from tradespeople.
Our store estate has grown by 40% since 2019, and store sales densities are two times our closest competitor. That success is driven by unbeatable ranges, prices, and convenience. On price, we index about 2% cheaper than our competitors. On convenience, we have truly innovative capabilities, enabling click and collect in just one minute. We also have one-hour delivery to site, which covers 60% of the U.K. population. We are not standing still, and further growth is top of mind. We are developing plans now to increase loyalty and therefore share of spend with us. We are building on Screwfix's assortment of 72,000 SKUs, as well as exploring a number of enhancements to our fast delivery proposition. With our stores, we have validated the blueprint of our new format. It is called Screwfix City, which is performing ahead of our expectations.
We are aiming to open up to 100 of these formats in the coming years. To slide 23, we are now exporting that successful model to France. We are pleased to see the rollout progressing in line with expectations, despite the challenging consumer backdrop in France. We believe the key to its long-term success is leveraging all the things that make Screwfix great in the U.K.: the best prices, fast fulfillment, and a wide selection of products. We are pleased to see sales trends of all store opening cohorts are progressing in line or indeed ahead of our expectations. We see the potential for more than 600 stores in France over time. Over to slide 24, we are nearly there. Turning now to an update on our plan for Castorama and Brico Dépôt in France. On this slide, we show the retail profit bridge year-on-year for those two banners.
By far, the biggest factor in the walk of profit year-on-year has been the home improvement market decline in France. It was down by over 7% according to GfK due to a weak French consumer against a very uncertain political and economic environment. Critically, against that backdrop, we've stayed focused on delivering against our strategic plans and managing our gross margin and costs effectively. Through a combination of market share gains, cost reductions, the three circles that are—sorry—through a combination of market share gains, gross margin improvements, and cost reductions, and those are the three circles on this slide, we've managed to fully offset the profit impact of the market decline. Finally, higher pay rates, other inflation, and investments we made in technology were a total of GBP 42 million.
To slide 25, and while we're pleased with our self-help progress in 2024, there's still much to be done. There are four key initiatives which will guide us to a medium-term margin target of 5%-7%, which you can see along the bottom of this slide. First, we completed the simplification of the French organizational structure in April last year. We shifted the responsibility for centralized decisions to the individual banners, and both banners have strengthened their leadership teams. Second, we continue to drive higher sales densities at both banners. Along with key range reviews, we're also driving forward the group's trade and e-commerce initiatives that have been applied so successfully in the U.K. Our third focus area is improving our productivity and operating efficiency, and we continue to make strides in reducing costs and inventory, and as highlighted, there is significant runway to go in these areas.
Finally, we're making rapid progress in restructuring and modernizing Castorama's store network. By the end of this year, we'll have completed or have works in motion on 24 of its lowest-performing stores. As demonstrated on the previous slide, these initiatives are starting to bear results. We believe that the severe market decline seen in France in 2023 and 2024 will at least reverse over the medium term. To summarize today's presentation over on slide 26, Kingfisher gained market share in all its key regions against a challenging backdrop. We achieved this by strong execution against our key group strategic initiatives of trade and e-commerce, and with the success of the U.K. businesses now being replicated in France and Poland. In France, we're growing market share and delivering on our self-help actions against what was a very weak market for the second year in a row.
We delivered profit and cash in line or ahead of our expectations, thanks to our strong financial disciplines. Following over GBP 900 million of share buybacks, we announced a new GBP 300 million program. Finally, we remain confident about the medium to longer-term outlook for the sector and the growth opportunities in our business. Home improvement is an exciting and attractive market, and Kingfisher is uniquely positioned to win. Hannah, let me pass back to you to start the Q&A.
Thanks very much, Maj. We've got a range of questions, so let's make a start. How would you describe the competitive state of the market with Homebase exiting? Have you seen any impact yet on your sales in those areas where Homebase has closed?
Thank you very much, Hannah. I think the question is really about the U.K. market where Homebase, very sadly, sort of announced its liquidation last year. What you've seen there is Homebase having had an estate of around 140 stores. So around 70 of those have been acquired now by The Range, and those stores are progressively now being opened under that banner. The other half of Homebase's portfolio, some of them have transferred to Sainsbury's.
Some of them have been bought, so eight of them have been acquired by ourselves, a few by one of our principal competitors. Very sadly, the remaining 50 have closed. I would say that within our assumptions for the year ahead, we do indeed assume some sales transference. That's very typical in our industry to see that.
The transference will depend on what happened to the legacy Homebase store, whether it transferred to a competitor, whether it went to a supermarket, or whether it's closed permanently. You see different levels of transference depending on where those stores have gone. It also depends on the proximity to the nearest B&Q store. Now we have over 300 B&Q stores across the U.K., so you would imagine we're reasonably well placed on that front. I think the final note there is that the U.K. is a competitive market.
It's a very competitive market. We're very well placed as the number one player, both in general home improvement, but also in trade with Screwfix as well. We remain really sort of focused on constantly improving the proposition, not resting on our laurels, and delivering on all of our priorities, which we hope will stand us in good stead over the coming years.
Great. Thank you. An unsurprising question here for you, Maj. Regarding Trump's tariff announcement, what is the impact to Kingfisher?
The direct answer to that, Hannah, is very limited impact. We have no sales exposure or operations in the U.S. On the indirect side, really thinking about suppliers and sourcing, between 20% and 25% of the products that we buy come from Asia. The majority of that is in China as well. What we need to do is obviously watch carefully and liaise with our manufacturers and suppliers in China to see in the coming weeks and months what impact the tariffs are having on their capacity. Also, what impacts that we're likely to see in the freight market. I think to be very direct, we don't expect any upward cost pressure. Let's see how the next few weeks sort of unfold.
Yeah. No, okay. Lots of unknowns there. What makes B&Q and Screwfix so attractive to the pros over competitors?
Great question. I think let's start with B&Q. B&Q has a trade-focused banner that I mentioned. It's called TradePoint. It's present in over 200 stores of B&Q's estate, so about two-thirds of its estate. The attractiveness of the proposition really centers around three things: the prices that we offer, the convenience, and also the product ranges and the availability of those products as well.
Really the group strategy in the last five years or so has been to really focus on those three elements to drive footfall, trade footfall into our stores, but also retain them as well. I think the job that we're doing continues to sort of improve, continues to optimize. We're seeing some really strong results from that. To have TradePoint sales move up by over 6% last year in what was undoubtedly a tough market in the U.K., I think demonstrates that. I've been through what we implemented at TradePoint last year in detail. Overall, I'd say that the focus on having the right people in store to attract, but also retain trade customers, giving them really what they want from a loyalty perspective, is absolutely key to the strategy.
Making sure the prices are competitive is important. Screwfix, which is also a trade-focused banner, but really originates from delivering to plumbers and electricians. That business is completely trade-focused. It has nearly 1,000 stores. You know, if you ever have people sort of repairing your boiler or your radiators or some electrics in your house, if they ever need something quickly, the chances are their nearest Screwfix is within a 10-minute drive away. If the trade do not want to leave your house whilst they are repairing your plumbing or your electrics, you can have a product ordered to your house, to the site, as quick as you can order a pizza.
If we stick to that triangle purpose of great prices, great convenience, great products, Screwfix really obsesses itself over ensuring that plumbers, electricians, and other general trade get everything they need delivered to them quickly. For them, time is money, but also at the best prices available. We are really happy with what we have done in the U.K. with TradePoint and with Screwfix. There is lots more to do, as I mentioned in the presentation. The key now is to take that framework, that blueprint for success in the U.K., and adopt it fast in France and Poland. That is very much on the agenda for this year.
Thank you for my segue to France, because we have got a few questions on that region. What are the early signs re-e-commerce in France, particularly in relation to the marketplace performance?
I think encouraging. We launched marketplace at Castorama in Q1 of last year. It is already up to 14% of its e-commerce sales coming from that marketplace. It is already pushing towards between 500,000 and 1 million SKUs on its platform from an original proposition of around 50,000 SKUs before that launch. We are really pushing up choice for customers. Like with B&Q, we will be investing in making sure that customers are aware of the proposition. France is a market where home improvement via online pure plays is commonplace. We see that with Amazon in the country. We see that with a home improvement specialist called ManoMano that operates in France as well.
The point is the model is well known. Castorama has exceptional brand equity in France. It's one of the big players, and the idea is to really leverage that awareness and that strong association that the French have with the Castorama brand to push the marketplace forward. Very happy to say that it's already at and already past a similar stage or already past the sort of level of sales that B&Q was at at a similar stage of its journey on marketplace three years ago. I think the signs, the early signs are good, Hannah.
Nice. When you refurbish or convert a store to Brico Dépôt, are you seeing good uplifts there?
Yes. I mean, before we announced the plan for France in March last year, we gave there were basically four avenues that we had for how we would address underperforming Castorama stores. Three of them were proven, so which was pervasive sort of renovations and modernizations of stores, right-sizing and transferring to a Brico Dépôt format. Perhaps the most unproven for us is the franchise model, even though that franchising in retail is very, very commonplace in France, perhaps less well known in the U.K. In terms of transferring to Brico, generally speaking, the store needs to be a slightly smaller format to really play to Brico Dépôt's DNA and operating model.
Brico Dépôt, for anyone on the line that hasn't visited this store, it's a little bit like a Screwfix, but for a slightly bigger sort of mass market audience. It's not just a pro-specific banner, but it is a discount-oriented banner, quite a limited SKU range, which allows us to drive volume through those ranges and keep prices down. An incredible format. Not long ago, it was the second highest returning asset within the Kingfisher group. Where you can identify the right Castorama store in terms of size profile, the conversion to Brico Dépôt we expect to be very strong, as we've proven historically. The one store that we have transferred over to Brico Dépôt in the last 12 months has literally just reopened as Brico in the last couple of weeks. I think it's fair to say we expect some good things from that store.
Good. I would be interested to hear your views, Maj. What do you think it will take for a macroeconomic recovery in France? Just a broad-ranging one for you there.
If I knew the answer to that question, Hannah, I'd probably be on a desert island somewhere, if I'm very honest with you. No, look, the way I always approach that question is to sort of look at the fundamentals. There are certain things then on top of that that clearly are exceptional and you can't control. The fundamentals in France and indeed in the wider eurozone is that actually, up to recently, the macro is in reasonably good shape. Inflation's down to around the 2% level.
It's a bit better, actually, than inflation levels, even in the U.K. Interest rates in the eurozone are on the way down. Again, on a trajectory that has eclipsed our own downward trajectory here in the U.K. Obviously, what happens in the environment, the political environment, as an example, both locally in France, but also what we're seeing in terms of the last week or so with regards to tariffs, yet to see how that impacts the sort of wider macro. I think if we hold recent events constant, the thing that we look for the most in terms of an indicator of the French home improvement market is how the consumers are behaving and how the consumers are feeling confidence-wise. The historical correlation between French consumer confidence and our sales is very high.
What we've seen, for example, in 2023, French consumer confidence was at a 40-year low. It is slightly better than that today, but it is still below par. Having said that, the savings ratio in France is a staggering 18.4% today, which clearly suggests to you that the French consumers have money, but they are just withholding that expenditure until they feel better about the economy, about business prospects, about their own personal finances, et cetera. I do not want to tempt fate. I do not want to crystal ball it, but, you know, the fundamentals of the French economy and the consumer are not actually in pretty good shape.
That is really helpful. On that basis, do you still believe you can get to a 5%-7% retail margin in France, particularly considering it went backwards 2024, 2025?
Yes, absolutely. If anything, actually, our convictions increased in that target. When we announced the 5%-7% target last year, clearly, we had set out scenarios that generally speaking, foresaw a decline in the French home improvement market. We had factored that into our maths, if you like, for the progression in 2024. The key thing is that through market share, through gross margin improvements, and through cost reductions, what we've done and what we've said, and our mantra has been very consistent, is that we can only focus on what we can control. Actually, the job that we've done in 2024 in terms of self-help really reaffirms our confidence in that margin target.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Are you expecting the big-ticket items in the U.K. to continue the improving trend?
Expect is a strong word. What I would say is that we saw really good evidence in Q4 of an improvement. We've seen that from some of our peers. For us, the focus has been on reviewing and then implementing new kitchen and bathroom ranges, which we've seen really come through well in terms of sales in France and also at B&Q in Q4. As they say in the U.K., one swallow doesn't make a summer. I think we need to see a couple more quarters, I guess, of sustained progress in big-ticket before we, at least two anyway, before we can sort of declare some sort of return to big-ticket spend. I think Q4 was encouraging, but it's early days, Hannah.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Cash flow and the motivation behind share buybacks. Would it not be better to invest in the business and accelerate the growth initiatives?
I think it's absolutely right that that's the priority in terms of doing exactly that, investing in the business and accelerating our growth initiatives. What we're really clear about in terms of how we allocate capital is that priority one, priority two, and priority three is to reinvest in the business where we can achieve superior returns. Our CapEx budget, if you like, is 3% of sales per annum on average. That is slightly at the high end of sort of industry peers. We do believe that our focus is exactly that.
The framework, however, calls for after your capital expenditure and after the dividends that we pay, if there is anything still left in the pot and anything surplus, that we return that to our shareholders rather than hold on to it on our balance sheet, which we deem as being inefficient. The buybacks that we have done and the buybacks that we announced a couple of weeks ago are exactly a function of that. You know, we exhaust every avenue of investment in the business before deciding to return anything.
Thank you. Looping back to France, Screwfix in particular, you have mentioned the potential for up to 600. How quickly can you roll these out?
The answer to that is that we do not look at it that way. The pace of rollout, I can understand why investors would want us to go faster and why that would be a sort of KPI of interest from their perspective. From our side, we're building a business effectively from scratch in a new country. Screwfix is well established in the U.K., clearly, but it's brand new to France. The strategy we're taking there is therefore a very measured rollout and a really strong focus on the evolution of KPIs. Once we get confident with that and once we get confident that the stores are constantly improving in terms of their sales progression, there is certainly a time in the future where we can put the foot to the floor, if you like, in terms of store openings.
For now, we need to make sure that we're measured and that we're controlled in terms of the evolution of the model, optimizing the model before we get super comfortable with a rollout plan. Certainly, look, if we think about the longer-term opportunity, you know, at least 600 stores over time, you know, we feel excited about it, but you know, we're containing that whilst we evolve the model.
Okay. Quick look at Poland, if we may. How is Ukraine impacting the situation in Poland?
I think, look, the Polish consumer is quite sensitive to what happens in Ukraine and the sort of various to's and fro's between Russia and the U.S. in terms of trying to come to a peace agreement. What we said in our outlook and guidance for the year, and as I mentioned halfway through the presentation, in the very near term, you know, we see that geopolitical situation as playing on the Polish consumers' minds. We're cautious of that. I think that is reflected in the fact that for the overall year, the scenarios that we've set out internally have the Polish market either low single-digit % down or low single-digit % up.
The fundamentals, again, like France, the fundamentals of the Polish economy are actually really strong. Inflation coming down from peaks of mid-teens a couple of years ago. Interest rates look likely to come down in the middle of this year, holding everything constant. The consumer has real wage growth in 2025. Now, obviously, our business, which is the number one in that market, is progressing really well, especially with its trade customer initiative. We feel optimistic about Poland, certainly over a longer-term basis, thinking about the likely evolution of the country and growth of the country as it urbanizes. In the very near term, we need to be mindful and a bit cautious about the situation in Ukraine.
Thank you. You touched there on trade initiatives. Yeah. How similar is Casto Pro compared to TradePoint in the U.K.? Do you think the market opportunity, the trade market opportunity specifically, is similar in Poland?
Taking the last bit first, I mean, actually, it's very similar. The culture, if you like, for home improvement in Poland is eerily similar to the U.K.. There is a lot of tradespeople, a lot of highly skilled tradespeople in Poland, which is great given that the country continues to urbanize and build new towns with a lot of sort of white space around the country. In terms of our position in the country with trade, obviously, we're at early days with applying the group strategy into the country. What we saw last year was fairly spectacular in terms of the adoption of the new trade loyalty program in the country. I mentioned earlier on that on average per day, we saw nearly 1,000 trade customers sign up to Casto Pro.
We're adopting similar models that we've applied in the U.K. in terms of the people, the trade dedicated people and colleagues in stores, new digital apps that we've launched and that are ramping up very strongly. In terms of Casto Pro, yes, it is quite similar to the TradePoint concepts in the U.K. in terms of separate entrances.
We actually took a group of investors and analysts out to Warsaw last year to actually see for themselves the sort of trade, the Castorama Pro proposition at quite a cool store that we showed them, which has almost like an indoor racing track where you, as a customer, you drive your car into the store and round around a, I'm going to say, like a sort of IKEA-style track where you can pick up timber, sand, cement, everything that you need for your project, and sort of pay for it on the exit from the store as you're driving out.
We don't have that in every single Castorama Pro or Polish store, but it gives you a flavor, I think, for the sort of innovation, the culture, if you like, and the real focus that we have in Poland on trade. I would say we have very high hopes for the evolution of our trade business in Poland.
Brilliant. I need to go and see that. On a final note, how does a late, and as I say, with the sun streaming in the window, a very sunny Easter would be helpful towards sales?
We'll tell you in May when we report our Q1, Hannah. I think in principle, good weather is good for us. I think that's fair to say. It encourages customers to improve their gardens, whether that's investing in new fencing or paint, or new decking, garden furniture, barbecues. There's just an array of things that, not just in the U.K., but in France and Poland, that we love to do in good weather.
That is obviously helpful. Importantly, also, you know, when you encourage customers to come into store, it encourages a certain level of cross-selling as well. There are other indoor projects that customers start to think about as they pop in for a tin of outdoor paint, for example. That part of it is very encouraging. It's the customer engagement into store that is something that actually then encourages either cross-sells or further visits to store as well. Let's see.
We'll tell you more about it in May when we report our Q1s. But on a personal note, certainly praying for a continuation of the lovely weather we're having.
A great note on which to end it. It just leaves me to thank everyone for joining us today and you, Maj, for presenting.
You're most welcome.
Looking forward to hearing more in due course.
Indeed. Thank you, Hannah. Thank you, everyone. Take care.