Cosmetics and toiletries retailer Body Shop showed flat pre-tax profits, despite seeing a three per cent increase in like-for-like worldwide sales.

In the half year to August 26, Body Shop - recorded an 18 per cent increase in turnover to £159.7 million.

But pre-tax profits at the Littlehampton-based company were flat at £6.8 million, largely because of a significant increase in operating costs to £92.2 million, compared with £73.9 million for the corresponding period last year.

The hike in costs was down to a number of factors, including greater investment in new products, increasing the proportion of stores owned by itself rather than franchised, getting ready for the Christmas rush and developing ecommerce opportunities.

Gordon Roddick, Body Shop's co-chairman along with his wife, Anita, who founded the business in Brighton, said the chain was seeing an improving trend in sales growth across all regions. But when the effects of new store openings was stripped away, like-for-like sales in the UK and Ireland were flat, as they were in the Asia Pacific region. It was in the Americas along with Europe and the Middle East that tills were really ringing, he said. The former had six per cent growth and the latter four per cent during the six months. In that period 53 new stores were opened, taking the total to 1,783, of which 458 were company owned.

Mr Roddick said the higher proportion of company-owned stores would be likely to improve in the next six months. He said: "The profitability of our business is becoming increasingly weighted towards the second half."

Body Shop's head of finance Alastair Murray said: "The figures were very much in line with what the company expected. We are very pleased with the company's perforance."

The interim dividend is 1.9p per share.