1977: As economic problems hit, Tesco’s UK chief executive Ian (now Lord) MacLaurin initiates the Operation Checkout price cut plan in an attempt to boost sales, starting a price war with Sainsbury’s. He also ditches the Green Shield Stamps saving scheme, which had been a key part of the business for 15 years, saving £20m to fund price cuts. The group goes on to closes 500 unprofitable stores and revamps others with wider aisles and better lighting.
1979: Sales reach £1bn.
1982: MacLaurin launches Checkout ‘82 – cutting prices by between 3% and 26% on about 1,500 food items, again kicking off a price war with Sainsbury’s. Sales reach £2bn.
1985: Tesco begins aggressive programme of store and warehouse expansion and puts in more technology.
1993: With the UK in recession,
Tesco launches its Value range – under the “Every Little Helps” strapline – aimed at fighting off discounters including KwikSave, Aldi and Netto.
The group makes its first foray abroad with acquisition of Catteau, a 92-store chain in France. The business is sold off four years later as it struggles against bigger rivals and discounters.
1994: Tesco heads overseas again with the purchase of Hungary’s S-Market, kicking off a phase of international expansion that takes the retailer as far as China, Korea and Turkey.
1995: Knocking rival Sainsbury’s off the top slot, Tesco becomes Britain’s biggest food retailer. The Clubcard is launched.
1997: Terry Leahy takes over as chief executive and Tesco opens its first Tesco Extra hypermarket in Pitsea, Essex.
2000: Tesco.com launched.
2003: T&S Stores taken over, adding 870 local convenience shops.
2005: Profits top £2bn.
2007: Tesco enters the US, announcing plans for hundreds of Fresh & Easy stores. UK market share reaches a high of 31.2%.
2009: Tesco Bank launched.
2010: Sir Terry Leahy, by now regarded as one of Britain’s most successful businessmen, announces plans to retire after a 14-year stint as chief executive saying he felt he had achieved his aim to “develop a purpose and values that could sustain Tesco through its challenges.”
2011: Phil Clarke becomes chief executive in March
just before announcing record profits of £3.8bn.
The Big Price Drop, a £500m price-cutting plan is launched at the end of the year, but the strategy fails as shoppers are not convinced by the savings on offer. The group
sells up in Japan after eight years.
2012: Clarke unveils a
£1bn makeover of stores and its website as UK profits fall.
Tesco’s crown as the UK’s most successful retailer slips further as it
finally calls time on its loss-making US business, Fresh & Easy, costing it £1.8bn in six years, the biggest-ever British retail failure in the US. Tesco had put £1bn into its US business, and its original plan was for a chain of 1,000 stores on the west coast, and then a move to the east coast too.
The failure of the US operation costs the retailer’s deputy chief executive, Tim Mason, his job.
2013: Tesco
reveals its first annual profit drop in 20 years and says it will not open more hypermarkets.
2014: Tesco starts the year with
a profits warning after poor Christmas sales.
A £200m price cuts campaign launched as Tesco’s market share shrinks to 28.7%, the lowest level in a decade, under attack from discounters Aldi and Lidl and Morrisons, which cuts its prices.
Clarke, who insisted in April that he was “not going anywhere”, is ousted in July after yet another profit warning. He is to stay on until October when he will be replaced by Dave Lewis, head of Unilever’s personal care business.
Standard & Poor’s cuts Tesco’s credit rating on 7 August, sending its shares down to a new 10-year low. On 29 August,
Tesco releases its third profit warning for the year, slashes its dividend by 75% and announces that new boss Lewis will start a month earlier than expected, on 1 September. “He will be reviewing all aspects of the group,” the retailer said.
September 22 -
Tesco shares slump as it admits that profits were overstated by £250m. Four executives are suspended.
The same week,
major investor BlackRock reveals it sold down its stake in the supermarket, Standard & Poor’s put its credit rating under review – and th
e business select committee chairman Adrian Bailey says executives may have to face MPs over its “stratospheric error”.
• Tesco confirms it has not had a finance director for five months.
• Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley takes a £43m punt on Tesco shares recovering
October 1 - Dave Lewis
launches “Feet on the Floor” initiative, sending thousands of head office staff, including senior executives, to work in stores for one day a fortnight in stores in the runup to Christmas.
The Financial Conduct Authority, the City regulator,
launches its own investigation into the accounting scandal.
October 2 - Legendary investor
Warren Buffett says buying shares in Tesco was “a huge mistake”.
October 3 - It emerges that Tesco has
taken delivery of a new $50m (£31m) Gulfstream G550 corporate jet.
October 6 - Tesco recruits
Mikael Ohlsson, the former boss of Ikea, and Compass chief executive Richard Cousins as non-executive directors.
October 14 -
Tesco suspends another three executives as part of probe into accounting scandal taking total to eight.
October 16 - Warren Buffett
sells off more of his Tesco shareholding.
October 23 - Tesco
publishes its delayed interim results, showing not only that the black hole was bigger than expected, at £263m, but that the accounting errors stretched back at least two years.
Pretax profits plunged 92% to £112m.
Chairman Sir Richard Broadbent is to resign.
Dave Lewis, who said the group was unable to offer any guidance on full-year profit, gave no hints on his strategy.
November 28 - Black Friday turned into a disaster for the group as police were called to restore order in at least 16 stores where
staff were overwhelmed by bargain-hunting customers.
A senior policeman later referred to the scenes in some of its supermarkets as akin to a mini-riot and scolded senior executives, arguing that the force’s “scarce resources should not be used to bail out stores when they’ve not planned effectively”.
December 1 - It is announced that Dave Lewis will take over the day-to-day running of the embattled supermarket’s UK chain as it heads into the crucial Christmas trading weeks, despite previously admitting that he had
never run a shop in his life.
December 4 - It became clear that Tesco’s website was
unable to cope with the number of orders placed on Black Friday. Customers complained of long delays on click-and-collect orders or missing out completely because products ordered during the promotional extravaganza had sold out.
December 9 - Dave Lewis marks his 100th day in charge
with another grim profits warning.
In an unscheduled trading update, Britain’s biggest retailer said trading profit for the current financial year will be no higher than
£1.4bn. City analysts had been expecting the company to make between
£1.8bn and
£2.2bn. A year ago, it made
£3.3bn.
, called “Staples Exchange”. The new online platform allows suppliers and vendors to offer office supplies directly to the retailer’s customers.
