Irish supermarket group Dunnes Stores is achieving a margin of 10% on its business in the North and in Britain, according to newly-filed accounts. The company made an after -tax profit of £19.5m (€23.2m) on turnover of nearly £195m, with both turnover and profits increasing from £187.7m and £19m respectively despite the recession.

That 10% margin is partly because the business there is much more focused on clothing and homeware than the more grocery-centred business here, meaning profit levels are usually higher. But the margin it is achieving still amazed some industry veterans last week.

Cash reserves at Dunnes Stores (Bangor) have also soared – cash at bank and on hand rose from £275.6m to £358.4m during the financial year. However, creditors were owed nearly £205m, up from £110.8m the previous year but that is in part because the amount owed to other companies within the Dunnes Stores group within the next year rose from £95.2m to £180.8m.

A note to the accounts states that a fellow group company "transacted purchase for resale of £55m and charged them at cost to it". The Northern and UK company also paid a management charge of £2.82m to Dunnes Stores itself, down from £2.93m the previous year.

Dunnes Stores (Bangor) also owed £4.8m on a bank overdraft but received interest of more than £6.3m on investments and "servicing of finance". Shareholders funds stood at £283.85m at the end of the year, up from nearly £275.5m.

Dunnes has six shops in England, five in Scotland and 23 in the North. The company said it does not provide an analysis of its turnover via either the type of business or by geographical market, saying that would be "seriously prejudicial to the company's interest".

The number of employees fell from more than 2,700 to 2,585 during the financial year and staff costs declined slightly from £23.87m to £23.55m. The company also made an actuarial pension gain of nearly €800,000 for the year ended 30 January 2010, compared to a €2.6m loss in 2009.

In the Republic, Dunnes Stores has been gradually losing sales as competition from Tesco, Aldi and Lidl begins to bite. Sales figures for the quarter ending in October of this year show its market share had slipped.

"Sales within Dunnes Stores continue to decline, by –0.7% since the last period, but this is the lowest rate we have seen since July 2009. Its strongly-publicised promotions at Halloween will have helped to boost sales this period and also provide a glimpse of the heavy promotions likely to feature in supermarkets in the run up to Christmas," said David Berry, commercial director at Kantar Worldpanel Ireland.