Following today’s release of B&M’s figures for the 52 weeks ending 28 March 2026; Emily Scott, retail analyst at GlobalData, a leading intelligence and productivity platform, offers her view: “B&M’s FY2025/26 results highlight a retailer still searching for a sustainable path back to growth. While it has pointed to improving trends under its Back to Basics programme, which launched in October 2025, its financial performance still has a lot of catching up to do as adjusted EBITDA fell 25.9% to £459m. Despite this large profit decline, B&M’s share price rose 15% following this morning’s results, suggesting investors are looking beyond current financial weakness and focusing instead on early signs of progress in the group’s turnaround plan. Group revenue increased by 3.6% to £5.8bn. This performance was largely driven by new store openings (41 in the UK) rather than by strong underlying demand. Despite some improvement in fourth-quarter performance, recovery remains fragile, and additional measures are necessary to enhance B&M’s value credentials for customers.
“The UK B&M business delivered broadly flat like-for-like sales (-0.1%) despite significant operational focus during the year, suggesting that efforts to improve pricing, availability, and instore execution have yet to translate into meaningful trading acceleration. A stronger performance in general merchandise helped offset the ongoing weakness in FMCG sales, indicating consumers’ willingness to spend on discretionary and seasonal products when they see value. However, it must improve its prospects in FMCG categories, given these products typically drive shopping frequency and repeat visits. Although B&M has the right plan in place, it needs to accelerate improvements in pricing and product availability to keep consumers engaged. Greater emphasis on market-leading prices in key traffic-driving categories such as health & beauty and household products, along with improvements to promotional visibility, could help rebuild footfall and increase basket sizes. B&M could also benefit from a more targeted social media strategy, particularly across platforms such as TikTok, where Gen Z consumers are highly responsive to trend-led products and impulse purchases.
“The retailer’s French arm continues to outperform, with revenue increasing 13.4%, supported by like-for-like sales growth of 2.9%, higher transaction volumes and 12 new store openings during the year. This division remains significantly less mature than the UK business, providing a runway for future growth. While France is not yet large enough to entirely offset the UK’s weakness, its growth is reassuring for the retailer. France is becoming an increasingly important contributor to the group’s long-term growth outlook.”
