Nationwide Accident Repair Services which serves the UK insurance industry, said it saw creditable underlying results in a challenging year.
It was hit by deterioration in trading conditions in the second half but it said it took action to rebalance the cost base, keeping capacity intact. Revenues were maintained at £172.9m in the year to end-December.
Gross profits margin were down by one percentage point to 46%, but underlying pretax profits fell by 8% to £5.5m.
Nationwide said there was continuing encouraging progress in non-insurance markets, with volumes up 25% and 55% respectively.
Michael Marx, chairman, said, 'In a tough year for the industry, Nationwide has performed robustly and underlying results for the year are creditable, with profit before tax excluding non-recurring items at £5.5 million on sales of £172.9 million. The decisive action we took in the second half to reduce the cost base was the correct response to position Nationwide appropriately for the future and while we have cut back, we have preserved overall capacity.
"At the same time, we are continuing to invest for long term growth both in our core insurance market as well as our newer fleet and retail markets. The overall market for repairs (both insurance-funded and fleet and retail) remains substantial and Nationwide has the infrastructure in place to build market share across all three sectors."
He concluded that while he expected trading to remain challenging in 2012 he said the "medium and long term prospects of the group are positive."
MORE ABOUT