Tesco rushes in new finance boss
TESCO has rushed in its new finance director Alan Stewart to start two months earlier than planned after a £250m profit error and new industry data yesterday showing a slide in quarterly sales plunged the retailer into further turmoil.
The retailer, which had billions of pounds knocked off its share price after revealing the error on Monday in the way it booked payments from suppliers, hired Stewart from Marks & Spencer in July after Laurie McIlwee resigned from the post in April.
He was not due to start at Tesco until the beginning of December. However, a spokesperson for M&S said Stewart had been released early from his gardening leave after a request made to chief executive Marc Bolland from Tesco’s new boss Dave Lewis.
The 54 year-old will be immediately tasked with preparing Tesco’s interim results, which were pushed back from 1 October to 23 October, and calculating the full impact of the accounting error, which caused it to overstate first- half profits by £250m.
His early appointment coincides with industry figures from Kantar Worldpanel showing that Tesco’s sales had fallen by 4.5 per cent in the 12 weeks to 14 September. Its market share now stands at 28.8 per cent – a steep decline on the 30.2 per cent it held in the same time last year.
Even rival Morrison’s fared better, as price cuts and promotions on fresh food helped slow its sales decline to 1.3 per cent in the period.
Meanwhile Sainsbury’s, usually one of the better performing supermarkets, saw sales fall 1.8 per cent – faster than those at Morrison’s – and raising its concerns over the strength of the business amid growing competition