Domestic & General said it was confident of profitable development after reporting a 137.5% increase in pretax profit for the six months ending 31 December 2003.
It said turnover for the first half of the year grew to £112.3m, up from £107.4m for 2002, while pretax profit reached £11.4m, boosted up from £4.8m in 2002 by the improved performance of equity investments.
Domestic & General said the company's support services activities, primarily its Inkfish call centre business, continued to experience difficult trading environments which resulted in a small divisional loss of £0.4m in the first half of the year.
Chairman Nicholas Rochez said the group expects to maintain steady growth in warranty turnover for the rest of the period, in line with the last few months.
The company said the claims ratio is also expected to show a continued improvement when compared to the same period in 2002, but that it was at a higher ratio than seen in the first six months.
Rochez said the group would continue to develop the strategic values of its telephone services, directed primarily to support the warranty business.
It said the inauguration of the new mailing facility in the summer would provide further opportunities to provide additional services to third party customers.
"Overall, we remain confident about the prospects for the profitable development of our group," said Rochez.
The board also said that it had decided to change the group's accounting reference date to March 31 and, subject to regulatory approval, would next report performance for the nine months to March 31 2004.
