B&Q owner Kingfisher has posted strong results for the first six months of its financial year and said there is "no clear evidence" the EU referendum result impacted its performance.

The DIY giant, which also owns Screwfix, said underlying pre-tax profits were up 13.5 per cent at £436m in the six months to the end of July. 

Véronique Laury, chief executive officer, said: “It has been a productive first half. We have delivered a good 'business as usual' result with both sales and profit growth. 

“Performance has been driven by Poland and the UK, especially Screwfix, and a stable profit performance in France. This has been achieved alongside managing the start of our ambitious transformation plan, based on creating a unified company where customer needs come first.

“In the UK, the EU referendum has created uncertainty for the economic outlook, even though there has been no clear evidence of an impact on demand so far on our businesses. In France we remain cautious on the short term outlook.

“Looking longer term, we are starting to build solid foundations to enable us to deliver our five year transformation, which is our key growth driver. We are making good progress on our strategic milestones for this first year and we are on track. The level of transformation activity will increase significantly, however given the expertise and energy of our colleagues we continue to feel confident about the challenges ahead.”