The Co-operative Group is back in annual profit following the near-collapse of its bank and a series of botched mergers and scandals.
The chief executive of the UK's largest mutual said it had made "solid progress" in its recovery during 2014 amid an overhaul of its governance and sale of businesses including farm and pharmacy operations.
The Co-op cited its rescue programme as a core reason for its return to profit and said it would have broken even at best without its disposals.
Profit-before-member payments of £124m for the year to 3 January, against a loss of £255m a year earlier, came on the back of £9.4bn in revenue.
It said sales growth of 0.4% in its food business and efficiencies in funeralcare offset losses in its insurance arm.
The group acquired 82 new food convenience stores and refurbished more than 700 stores during the period.
It aimed to add another 100 in the current year.
The Co-op said a 2% fall in funeral sales was down to "a year affected by a particularly low death rate".
The Co-op was left reeling in 2013 when it emerged that its banking arm was facing a £1.5bn black hole as it tried to acquire more than 630 branches from Lloyds Banking Group.
The bank's chairman Paul Flowers was subsequently exposed by a tabloid newspaper as a serial drug-user, plunging the Co-op name deeper into crisis even as it surrendered control of the high street lender to American hedge funds.
There was further turmoil at the top last year when Euan Sutherland quit as the group's chief executive after details of his pay package were leaked to the media.
Mr Sutherland was replaced by Richard Pennycook who, along with new chairman Allan Leighton, are presiding over a rebuilding of the Co-op's structure.
Mr Pennycook said: "We made solid progress in 2014 as we successfully concluded the rescue phase of our turnaround.
"The hard work of rebuilding the Co-operative Group for the next generation, and restoring it to its rightful place at the heart of communities up and down the UK, is now under way.
"We significantly reduced net debt, even after meeting our outstanding contributions to The Co-operative Bank.
"This followed the successful sales of our Farms and Pharmacy businesses and detailed work to ensure we have the right cost base in place."
He added: "Given the need to invest in all our businesses, the Board will not be recommending a dividend to members and believes that a resumption of dividend payments is unlikely until the rebuild phase is complete and we have returned to sustainable profitable growth."
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