SHARES in B&Q owner Kingfisher plunged more than 12% as it became the latest major retailer to warn that the rise in employer national insurance contributions have a significant impact on the business, costing it around £31 million.

In reporting sales of £3.2 billion for the third quarter, flat on the same period last year, the DIY retailer highlighted uncertainty in the UK and France – where it owns Castorama and Brico Dépôt – in October, related to budgets in both countries.

Kingfisher downgraded its annual pre-tax profit expectations to between £510 million and £540m after posting worse-than-expected quarterly sales and warned of an “uncertain” outlook. It had previously anticipated profits of between £510m and £550m, down from pre-tax profits of £568m in the 12 months to January 31.

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It said the slowdown in October, following its “solid” sales performance in August and September, could also be attributed to adverse weather conditions.

While sales performance was solid in August and September, October saw a slowdown, driven by uncertainty in the UK and France related to government budgets and adverse weather conditions.

In the UK & Ireland, Kingfisher’s performance across its brands was mixed. At Screwfix, like-for-like sales increased 1.8% and sales growth of 4.6%, while B&Q experienced a decline of 1.0%, with a like-for-like dip of 0.6%. TradePoint, B&Q’s business which focuses on trade, performed well, with like-for-like sales growth of 4.9%.

Thierry Garnier, who joined the FTSE 100 company as chief executive in 2019, said: “Overall trading in the third quarter was resilient. Improved performance in August and September was offset by the impact of increased consumer uncertainty in the UK and France in October, related to government budgets in both countries.

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“All our banners in the UK, France and Poland performed in line or ahead of their respective markets, with particularly strong market share gains at Screwfix. We continued to see improved volume trends in our core categories, supported by repairs, maintenance, and existing home renovation.

“As expected, sales of our ‘big-ticket’ categories remained soft, although we are seeing early signs of improvement.”

Mr Garnier, a former non-executive director of Tesco who was also managing director of supermarkets for Carrefour France, noted that Kingfisher continued to “deliver rapid progress against our strategic and operational objectives”, adding: “E-commerce sales penetration increased by 1.3 percentage points to 18.8% in Q3, supported by the continued strong growth of our marketplaces.”

The group, which launched TradePoint’s first mobile app last month, said it was also making “strong progress” with its plans to restructure and modernise Castorama France’s lowest-performing stores, having selected partners for its first two franchised stores.

“Looking towards next year, recent political and macroeconomic developments have layered incremental uncertainty onto the near-term outlook in our markets,” said Mr Garnier. “So we continue to focus our energy on what we can control – delivering further market share gains through our key strategic priorities, and managing our retail prices, costs and cash effectively.

“As a group, we are strongly positioned to benefit from the inflection to come within home improvement.”

Kingfisher is the latest in a long line of UK retailers including Tesco, Boots, Marks & Spencer and Next to warn that an increase in costs after the Budget would lead to job cuts and higher prices.

Last week, in a letter to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, industry body the British Retail Consortium warned of the financial impact of the impending increase in employer national insurance contributions and the national living wage.

The letter, with over 80 signatories, stated: “Taken together, the retail industry’s costs could rise by up to £7bn a year. This will also affect our suppliers, increasing costs that retailers pay for goods and services.”

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Noting that retail is the UK’s largest private sector employer, contributing more than £100bn annually to GDP and directly employing three million people, the letter said: “We appreciate government’s focus on improving the fiscal situation and investing in public services. We also recognise the role businesses have in supporting this.

“But the sheer scale of new costs and the speed with which they occur create a cumulative burden that will make job losses inevitable, and higher prices a certainty.”