Sales fell 2 per cent to £212.6 million (€284 million) at Dunnes Stores' outlets in the North, England, Scotland and Spain in the year to January 31st, 2007, according to new figures provided by the retailer.

Accounts just filed for Dunnes Stores (Bangor), the northern firm behind about a quarter of the stores in the family-owned grocery, clothing and home goods chain, showed that pretax profits dropped by 2 per cent to £37.1 million in the four regions. The accounts cover all Dunnes outlets outside the Republic, or 41 of the group's 161 stores.

Dunnes has 120 stores in the Republic, 24 in the North, seven in England, five in Scotland and five in Spain. Dunnes does not file accounts in the Republic because its Dublin parent company is unlimited.

The retailer is owned by the Dunne family and run by siblings Margaret Heffernan and Frank Dunne, whose father Ben Dunne snr founded the business in Cork in 1944. The retailer employs 18,000 staff. Ms Heffernan's office said the company did not comment on its financial results.

Dunnes Stores (Bangor) paid a dividend of £2.4 million during the year, down from £22.6 million the previous year. Staff numbers at the company fell to 3,057 from 3,278, while the wages and salaries bill rose from £23.9 million to £24.2 million. The Co Down company made £8.5 million on bank interest during the year, up from £6.4 million the previous year.

The directors of Dunnes Stores (Bangor) do not provide a breakdown of its turnover by class of business and geographical market as in their opinion, as "this would be seriously prejudicial to the company's interest", the accounts state. The company made an operating profit of £26.4 million during the year, representing a margin of 12.4 per cent, down from 13.1 per cent the previous year.

Dunnes Stores (Bangor) had retained profits of £245 million at January 31st, 2007, up from £221 million a year before, while cash reserves increased to £187 million from £175 million during the year. It made profit of £2.5 million from the sale of property, compared to £3.4 million a year earlier.

The firm owed £60.4 million to Dunnes Stores group companies at January 31st, 2007. A management charge of £3.95 million was charged by Dunnes Stores to the Co Down company.

A group company, Dunnes Stores, conducted purchases for resale of £47.9 million for Dunnes Stores (Bangor) and charged them at cost through an intercompany account.

Dunnes Stores opened its first store in the North in 1971 and in Spain in 1980. It expanded into Britain in 1986 with textile-only stores and opened its first Scottish store in 2000.

Dunnes lost a High Court action last month taken by Mosaic Fashions, parent company of British clothes retailer Karen Millen, which claimed that the Irish company had copied its designs.