Election clouds recovery - Kingfisher

The firm also cut its net debt to 200 million pounds and forecast year-end net debt of 300 million pounds, much better than previous guidance.

"The progress from a net debt position of 1.6 billion pounds at January 08, to just 300 million pounds by January 10 is nothing short of miraculous," said Andrew Wade, analyst at Numis Securities.

He raised his year to end-January 2010 pretax profit forecast to 541 million pounds from 525 million.

Kingfisher shares have more than doubled over the last year on recovery hopes, outperforming the DJ Stoxx European retail index by 43 percent.

The stock was down 0.5 percent at 235 pence at 9:42 a.m., valuing the business at about 5.6 billion pounds.

Kingfisher's sales increased 5.6 percent to 2.69 billion pounds, with sales at stores open more than a year up 0.8 percent.

Like-for-like sales increased 5.7 percent at B&Q, but fell 0.8 percent at Castorama. They were up 1.0 percent in Poland and increased 4.7 percent in China, the first positive result for two years.

(Editing by Dan Lalor and Jon Loades-Carter)