Carpetright : says stores refresh drives return to like-for-like growth

LONDON (Reuters) - British carpet and floor coverings retailer Carpetright reported a return to like-for-like sales growth in Britain in its third quarter, helped by a store refurbishment programme.

Like-for-like sales in Britain rose 1.9 percent in the 13 weeks to Jan. 28 against a 2.9 percent fall in its first half, the company said on Tuesday.

Chief Executive Wilf Walsh said the group's trading performance over the last four weeks, with like-for-like growth of 6.8 percent, gave him confidence that the group's turnaround strategy was on track.

"The refurbished stores with our new brand identity continue to outperform the uninvested estate and we are confident of hitting our target of 150 stores - representing over one third of the UK estate by the financial year-end," he said.

The group said it remained comfortable with analysts' forecasts for underlying pretax profit for the year to April 29 in the range of 13.9 million pounds to 16.5 million pounds.

(Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by Kate Holton)