LONDON: Supermarket giant Tesco have announced plans to close 43 stores across the UK after its sales slump. Total sale fall by 2.9%. The closures will mainly effect local convenience shops, but the supermarket also announced that it would be shelving plans to open a further 49 new, very large stores.
Tesco will also be closing their staff pension scheme, which is one of the most liberal in the country. This will make cuts of £250 million and reduce overheads by 30%. In an even further bid to cut costs, plans have been announced to sell the analytics business behind Clubcard, scrap the dividend payout to shareholders, and slash 30% of the retailer’s central costs.
Tesco has been overwhelmed with falling sales and scandals over the last few years, with overall, comparable sales for the three months to the beginning of January falling by 2.9%.In the previous three months, sales had dropped by 5.4%.
The changes come under the new chief executive David Lewis, who made drastic changes while he worked for Uniliever.
Recent performance gives us confidence that when we pull together and put the customer first we can deliver the right results.” sales for more than a decade, and all four of the big UK supermarkets face tough competition from discount supermarkets Aldi and Lidl.
