Unipart, the logistics and supply giant that began as the spare-parts offshoot of British Leyland, has unveiled 2023 yearly results which show like-for-like revenue rose by 14.2%.

With profit recovering to exceed pre-Covid levels, the figures for the year ending December 31 show group turnover increased to £1,047.9m, the previous year being £917.3m.

Majority owned by its 12,000 staff, the Oxford-based company counts Airbus, Volkswagen, Vodafone, Three and the NHS among its clients and is one of the UK's biggest employee-owned firms. It also works with Network Rail and is preparing to celebrate its 50th birthday this year.

Darren Leigh, Unipart CEO, said: "It was a strong year for us - surpassing £1 billion in revenue and materially strengthening our profitability. In the face of ongoing market headwinds and external disruption to global supply chains, Unipart's supply chain solutions and performance improvement technologies are needed by our customers more than ever before."

A clear growth strategy across seven core market sectors, a robust order book and a talented, committed team of experts, ensured the firm has a confident outlook for 2024, he added.

John Neill, Executive Chairman, added: "We need to keep growing in a faster changing world which in some respects is hard to calibrate so we must and will embrace the multitude of Generative AI tools to enable us to create innovative products, services and solutions for our company and our customers.

"Unipart pioneered the stakeholder management philosophy in Britain and I'm grateful to all of our stakeholders, particularly to our customers and all my fellow employees for their engagement, support and commitment."