Admiral posts record numbers

25th Aug 2009 07:20

Car insurer Admiral announced another record half year profit despite the poor economic conditions, prompting the firm to gives its employees shares worth £4.5m in total.Pre-tax profit for the six months rose 5% to £105.3m on turnover that increased 17% to £540.1m. Interim dividend was also hiked to 27.7p per share from 26p before."Considering the general economic climate and pathetic investment returns this was an outstanding result," said chief executive Henry Engelhardt, who as a result of the record numbers is giving every staff £1,500 of free shares, worth £4.5m.Key to the group's success was the result turned by the UK car insurance business, which saw profit rise 18% to £101.2m.It also increased the number of group customers up 18% to 1.92m.Admiral has also developed its operations outside the UK. It has now over 100,000 customers outside the in Spain, Germany and Italy and these businesses contributed £24.5m of turnover in the first six months of the year.