KWIK-FIT has seen its profits surge 153 per cent in spite of competitive pressures in its core automotive supply and fitting market.

The tyres and exhaust specialist, which operates more than 620 fitting centres as well as 220 mobile vehicles around the UK, said it managed to increase its turnover by just one per cent from £515.16 million to £519.1m.

However accounts recently filed at Companies House for Kwik-Fit (GB), the main trading company, show pre-tax profit soared from £11.37m to £28.9m in the 12 months to March 31 this year. The business, which is owned by Japanese conglomerate Itochu Corporation, saw the cost of its sales drop £10m to £445m but administrative expenses increased from £48.1m to £52.1m.

There was a near £9.2m gain of income from shares in other group undertakings but even stripping out that payment operating profit had grown from £11.9m to almost £22m. The directors said they were satisfied with the performance in a year when there had been challenging market conditions and a relatively mild winter period which can lead to muted demand.

More than £26m was invested during the year modernising Kwik-Fit's retail sites, with 58 being refurbished in the period.

Writing in the accounts the directors said there had also been investment in staff training and human resources development which would help to improve its customer service offering.

They said: "Training facilities were further developed to enable the company to meet training needs in a fast developing automotive environment."

The accounts show that group staff numbers in the year rose from 4,942 to 5,112.

The directors said the business, which has moved its headquarters from Broxburn, West Lothian, to Letchworth Garden City following the Itochu deal, plans to continue to refurbish more of its centres this year as well as adding in new products and services.

The IT infrastructure across the UK is also being upgraded while further investment in staff training is also in the pipeline.

They added: "The company's strategy will remain unchanged in the coming year, [namely] to develop its business through providing market leading products, facilities and customer service."

Total directors' remuneration went up from £376,799 to £444,378 with the highest paid director seeing their emoluments and pension payments growing from £196,924 to £237,230.

A dividend of £95.2m was paid out in the year, compared to no payment in the prior year.

The annual accounts also highlight Kwik-Fit's commitment to bringing down its carbon emissions. It replaces around five million tyres each year and shreds them on site, producing around 41,000 tonnes of rubber.

Kwik-Fit said as a result it can send out three trucks per day for rubber recycling while the figure would be 20 trucks if the tyres were not shredded.

They also use the same recycling network for the 60,000 or so catalytic converters it sends for re-processing every year.

Kwik-Fit was founded by Sir Tom Farmer and was listed on the stock market before being sold to Ford for around £1 billion in 1999.

Three years later Ford sold the company to private equity firm CVC Capital partners for just £330m. CVC then sold Kwik Fit for around £800m to fellow private equity business PAI Partners.

Itochu paid around £637m to become owner of Kwik-Fit in March 2011.