Q&A: Kingfisher Group chief executive Ian Cheshire

How difficult was trading last year?

It was a tough year and the first time in five years that numbers have gone backwards. If you were a real optimist, you could say that we had the wettest summer for 100 years last year, and March has been the worst for 50 years, so we are clearly on an upward trajectory.

We’re getting on with building a world-class retailer. We generated great cash flow and paid off our debt. The long-term picture remains unchanged.

Why are you reducing the B&Q portfolio footprint?

If you started with a blank sheet of paper, you could probably take the same amount of trade in 20% fewer stores. If you could find complementary retailers to take space - like cycle shops, or retailers like Go Outdoors - why wouldn’t you get them in? We are taking almost the same amount of money from Belvedere [where B&Q cut its store in half and sublet the remainder to Asda]. It could be a fantastic unlock. It could be really significant for our returns.

How long will it take to have the size of estate you want?

It’s not going to be a quick fix because we don’t have a mountain of lease expiries.

And there aren’t many retailers taking space. It could take a long time. We’re looking at all sorts of radical ideas.

What are you doing on omnichannel this year?

We’re doing a heart and lung transplant for the way we operate. This year is critical in getting B&Q from a store-based retailer to an omnichannel retailer. We want to transform B&Q into a slick omnichannel operation.