MFI profits soar past £1bn

FURNITURE group MFI saw sales soar past the £1bn mark last year, helped by expanding on the high street and refitting its larger stores. The group said it had undergone a transformation during the past three years, increasing store numbers from 274 to 549. It has started opening stores on the high street, where it now has 20 shops, while it is also refitting its out-of-town shops. Overall, sales for the year to December 29 rose above £1bn for the first time, at £1.1bn, up from £900.6m the previous year. Pre-tax profits, stripping out exceptional items, rose 42.5 per cent to £64.7m. Including exceptionals - such as a £5.9m charge relating to reorganising its manufacturing division in 2001 and one-off profits on the sale of businesses in 2000 - bottom-line pre-tax profits fell to £58.8m from £64.8m.

HOTEL RECOVERY: Hotels-to-betting group Hilton is seeing a recovery in trade following the post September 11 slump. Trading at the group's hotels was hit by the fall in international travel after the attacks in the US, with the most significant falls at its hotels in London, Paris and Amsterdam. Over the year to December 31, profits at its Hilton International division fell 17 per cent to £221.4m.

PROFITS JUMP: Record sales of life assurance and pension plans fuelled a ten per cent jump in profits at Legal & General last year. Distribution deals with Barclays, Alliance & Leicester and hundreds of high street brokers saw L&G increase its share of new UK business by nearly two per cent. Operating profits for the group as a whole surged to £751m, compared with £686m in 2000.

NEW PRESSES: Newspaper group Trinity Mirror is investing £90m in four new regional presses. The news came as the group, owner of The Journal and Middlesbrough Evening Gazette, saw full-year profits rise from £154.1m to £155.5m.