The Sunday Business Post newspaper made a profit of €78,801 for the 12 months to the end of June last year, compared with a loss of €628,273 for the previous year.

The title’s improved financial performance was put down to enhanced advertising revenue, “a stablisation in circulation” and cost controls.

The newspaper was rescued from examinership in 2013 by investment firm Key Capital and newspaper industry executive Paul Cooke, who acquired it from Thomas Crosbie Holdings.

"The team at the Sunday Business Post have worked amazingly hard to achieve this performance and we are on course to record increased profits in the current year," Mr Cooke, chief executive of Post Publications Limited, the company behind the paper, said .

“These results prove the quality of the brand and also the value which readers and advertisers place on quality independent journalism, particularly in an era where media ownership is consolidating,” he said.

According to the latest readership figures, released earlier this month, the Sunday Business Post's circulation was 3.2 per cent lower than it was a year ago at 32,162.