Accident repair group Nationwide Accident Repair Services has grown revenues by 6% year-on-year, its half-year financial results show.

Its chairman, Michael Marx, said the group is now in the second year of its three year growth plan and progress towards its objectives has been "good".

Underlying profit before tax has risen by 16% to £3.5m for the six months to June 30 2011, with turnover increasing by 6% to £92.3 million over the same period.

"The results show the continuing steady progress we are making to develop our core insurance market and, while sensibly leveraging our infrastructure and systems to build sales in non-insurance funded markets, especially fleet and retail, where our presence is relatively low currently.

"While we expect current economic conditions to create some challenges, we believe that the Group is well positioned for the remainder of the year and remain very positive about the Group's long term prospects," added Marx.

The Group's revenues from the fleet sector increased by 28% over the six months, with retail sales rising by 72%. That comes after Nationwide launched enhanced mobile repair services last year, targeting both corporate motorists and retail customers.

During the period the group's profit was impacted by one-off costs of £514,000, principally related to its centralisation of group finance and administration functions to one site Bristol and its closure of a non-core site in Bournemouth. These actions are expected to bring savings in 2012.

Chief executive Michael Wilmshurst added Nationwide will make additional investment in its mobile repair capacity during the second half, which will help to support further growth.

 

"We see opportunities to grow our market share in both our core insurance market, where we currently account for approximately a 5% market share, and in our newer non-insurance funded markets of fleet and retail," he added.