The British company, which operates the B&Q and Castorama do-it-yourself retail chains, said Thursday that it had hired Peter Partma, formerly the head of development for IKEA in Russia, to oversee Castorama's entry into the Russian market.
With 568 stores worldwide and sales last year of nearly $13 billion, Kingfisher is the largest home-improvement retailer in Europe and No. 3 in the world, after Home Depot and Lowe's of the United States.
A Kingfisher official said the company is already looking at locations for the first of what may eventually be 50 stores in Russia. "This is not a target, just the number of stores we believe might be possible in Russia," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The company will open an office in Moscow in "two or three weeks" and plans to open "four or five stores" initially, with the first scheduled to open its doors "in a year or two," the official said.
Russia's do-it-yourself, or DIY, market is estimated to be worth more than $5 billion per year. Traditional open-air markets continue to account for the majority of DIY sales, but Western chains are starting to gain ground.
Another large European DIY chain, Germany's OBI, opened its first two stores in Russia last year, both of which are located next to IKEAs. OBI has said that it would like to have 30 stores nationwide within four to five years.
France's Leroy Merlin, which has 165 stores in eight countries, is on track to open its first two stores in Moscow by the end of the year. Russia's Staryk Khottabych, which operates 18 finishing materials stores in Moscow, is the only major domestic DIY retailer.
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