Tesco is one of the worlds leading international retailers. Since the company first the trading name of Tesco, in the mid 1920s, the group has expanded into different formats, different markets and different sectors. The UKs leading retailer Tesco was floated on the stock exchange in 1947 and in 1995 took over rival Sainsburys position as the UK number one. The principal activity of the group is food retailing, with over 2,000 stores worldwide. Tesco has a long term strategy for growth, based on four key parts: growth in the Core UK business, to expand by growing internationally, to be as strong in non-food as in food and to follow customers into new retailing services. The company launched a home shopping service in 2000, allowing customers to order their shopping online. Tesco is now expanding its convenience stores and overseas into areas such as Taiwan, Malaysia, Poland, the US and Ireland.

Upper graph = 12 month share price with 6 month moving average
Lower graph = 12 month volume (red line = volume average).

There must be words from Ian MacLaurin the son in law of Jack Cohen , the founder of Tesco in the next week . He will see red with Leahy.

Sir Terry must not forget his foray in to the USA where they were crushed by Walmart and other big food retailers ..
A stupid place to try and open up i would have thought ..

Agree jimmy b. Leahy is out of order attacking Clarke, when Clarke is trying to sort the pickle he left. Whether he will exceed or not, who knows. I do know one thing and that is Tesco was in fine order before Ian M handed the Chief exec job to Leahy.

Troubled supermarket giant Tesco sees another director head for the doors

By James Salmon

Published: 01:04, 25 June 2014 | Updated: 01:04, 25 June 2014


Under-fire: Tesco chief executive Philip Clark

Another senior Tesco executive has checked out as the troubled supermarket giant braces itself for a heated showdown with investors at its annual shareholder meeting on Friday.


It is understood that UK general merchandise director Neela Mukherjee has been forced out following a reshuffle of the management team earlier this month.


She is replaced by Robin Terrell, the group ‘multi-channel director’ who takes responsibility for general merchandise which includes electrical goods, homewares and stationery.


Although not a board member, Mukerjee’s departure, barely 18 months after she took on the job, marks the latest unsettling twist in the rein of under-fire chief executive Philip Clarke.


A string of senior executives have quit or been pushed out since Clarke took over in March 2011. These include finance director Laurie McIlwee, Tim Mason – who headed the failed US operation Fresh & Easy – and UK chief Richard Brasher.


Clarke has come under pressure to quit after a string of dismal results, most recently a 3.8 per cent drop in sales in the three months to the end of May.


Tesco (down 2.65p to 289.35p) is haemorrhaging customers in the escalating grocery price war to discount rivals Aldi and Lidl.


The store’s credit rating was slashed on Monday by Fitch after being cut by Moody’s last week.


But Clarke received some comfort yesterday, with former Tesco chief executive Lord MacLaurin urging investors to give him more time.


The peer criticised the mess left by Clarke’s predecessor Sir Terry Leahy


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/markets/article-2667233/Troubled-Tesco-sees-director-head-doors.html#ixzz35fA0RQPS
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Shareholders accuse ‘deluded’ Tesco bosses over fall in profits: Loss of sales to rivals Aldi and Lidl blamed on ‘arrogance’
Bosses blasted as 'arrogant' by angry shareholders after sales slump
Underlying pre-tax profits down by six per cent in the last financial year
Effectively means a fall of some £500million compared to two years ago


By Sean Poulter And Jim Norton

Published: 01:02, 28 June 2014 | Updated: 01:02, 28 June 2014


Tesco bosses were blasted as ‘arrogant’ and ‘delusional’ by angry shareholders yesterday as they attempted to defend a slump in sales and profits.

Underlying pre-tax profits were down by six per cent in the last financial year, taking them to £3.3billion, which is a fall of some £500million compared to two years ago.

Chief executive, Philip Clarke, and directors struggled to defend the firm’s record before shareholders at the firm’s annual general meeting in Westminster
Underlying pre-tax profits at Tesco were down by six per cent in the last financial year (file picture)



The company has lost vital sales to the thriving discount chains, Aldi and Lidl, which are opening new outlets at the rate of more than one a week and are particularly targeting middle income families.

The Tesco AGM has become a forum for critics and campaigners to hold the company to account with often painful results for its directors.

Shareholder Michael Mason-Mahon railed at the ‘arrogance’ of the board, angry that several executives were not even present because they were on holiday.


The retired 57-year-old, who previously worked in retail, said: ‘You only have to look at the people outside demonstrating. You just don’t have a clue, no wonder customers cannot trust you any longer.


‘We are not asking for rocket science, we are asking you to deliver what you are promising.


‘We are paying each of you millions. You’re supposed to have the best business brains in Britain. Yet in the last five weeks our share price has tumbled.’


Shareholder Trevor Harrison complained that shop floor in Tesco was like a ‘battleground’ with cages with stock in littered about, dirty shelves, and empty boxes.


He said: ‘You say you are doing something about it and that the board knows what is going on. I put it to you that you are delusional.’


Mr Clarke has built his recovery plan on improving stores, hiring extra customer service staff and improvements to the recipes of its own label food. The company has also pledged price cuts to match the reductions of rivals.

He told investors these changes amount to the ‘most radical for a generation’ with evidence that sales are rising strongly in those stores that have been redesigned.

Labour leader Ed Miliband, pictured, has promised that a Labour government would legislate to prevent construction companies from stockpiling land in the hope it will go up in value, rather than building new homes
Labour leader Ed Miliband, pictured, has promised that a Labour government would legislate to prevent construction companies from stockpiling land in the hope it will go up in value, rather than building new homes



There have been suggestions that the board should jettison the chief executive amid the apparent failure of his effort to halt the fall in sales.

However, he was given a vote of confidence by the chairman, Sir Richard Broadbent, who said he should be given more time to combat the impact of an acutely difficult economic climate.

He said: ‘We, the board, are very aware that the company’s share price performance has been poor over the last 12 months. But it is important that we do not flinch from the decisions needed to shape a competitive business for the future.

‘You, and we, want to see better performance. We believe that the considered steps we are taking will deliver better performance in a sustainable fashion for the long-term future of the business.’


A number of shareholders suggested the blame for many of Tesco’s problems could be laid at the door of Mr Clarke’s predecessor, Sir Terry Leahy. He decided to open stores in the USA which failed with an estimated bill of £2billion.


He also sanctioned the creation of a vast and expensive land bank, which is now something of a millstone.

The retailer paid top price for the land as part of a massive empire building exercise that was designed to see a vast network of ‘big box’ supermarkets in every town.

However, the retail goliath has found people do not like using the supersize stores and it has now called a halt to its aggressive expansion plans. As a result, it has been left hundreds of sites that it does not want to build on.


One report suggests there are as many as 310 sites split across locations throughout Britain. If combined it is estimated they would cover 4.6 million square metres of land, enough for 15,000 homes.

Tesco claims this is an over-estimate and insists that it is keen to sell on excess land to home builders and others.

There is growing pressure from across the political spectrum to impose some kind of financial penalty or tax on companies that are sitting on vacant land, which might be developed for housing or other purposes.

The Labour leader Ed Miliband has promised that a Labour government would legislate to prevent construction companies from stockpiling land in the hope it will go up in value, rather than building new homes. Some argue this should also be applied to supermarkets, local councils and others.


The scale of Tesco’s land holdings was calculated by the Guardian newspaper using Land Registry records and aerial photography by the company Getmapping to create a map.

A store spokesman confirmed it does own a large amount of excess land, which it is keen to sell on.

He said: ‘As we have previously announced, in response to changing customer shopping habits we have decided to reduce the amount of new space we build each year, building fewer large stores. Where we no longer intend to develop sites, we sell them, lease them or develop them for housing.’

Deutsche Bank Buy 284.18 284.15 342.00 342.00 Retains

APPOINTMENT OF CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND TRADING UPDATE

Or put another way.. Tesco issues profit warning as trading conditions deteriorate.

UPDATE - Clarke to check out of Tesco; shares rise

By Giles Gwinnett and

July 21 2014, 3:57pm
Michael Hewson, analyst at CMC Markets, summed it up thus: 'Quite simply the company was too slow to adapt to the changing shopping habits of a UK consumer who was becoming much more cost and value conscious'
Michael Hewson, analyst at CMC Markets, summed it up thus: "Quite simply the company was too slow to adapt to the changing shopping habits of a UK consumer who was becoming much more cost and value conscious"


Investors appeared not to mourn the departure of Philip Clarke from Britain's largest retaile Tesco (LON:TSCO) too much - as the shares were among the best performing on Footsie all day.

Clarke is headed for the exit checkout after getting the top job in 2011 and following a pretty undistinguished period.

He leaves in October, making way for Dave Lewis, who has been recruited from the consumer brands giant Unilever (LON:ULVR).

It is true to say analysts said Clarke was left a difficult legacy, including having to extract the supermarket from the US.

But the store has also been slow to react to the changing competitive landscape in which discounters Aldi and Lidl have increased their market share.

Michael Hewson, analyst at CMC Markets, summed it up thus: "Quite simply the company was too slow to adapt to the changing shopping habits of a UK consumer who was becoming much more cost and value conscious".

Hewson also pointed to Tesco's profit warning as it revealed current trading conditions had been "more challenging" than anticipated - also in today's statement.

This warning appeared to have been the final straw for Clarke, who joined Tesco as a 14-year-old shelf stacker, suggested Hewson.

"Unfortunately for Mr Clarke, Tesco’s problems would appear to predate his taking over the company and he appears to be paying the price for taking too long to turn around the retail supertanker that is Tesco’s," said Hewson. The question is whether Lewis's appointment will be a game changer.

Earlier, Tesco chairman Sir Richard Broadbent said: "Philip Clarke agreed with the board that this is the appropriate moment to hand over to a new leader with fresh perspectives and a new profile.”

Clarke's successor comes in on a basic salary of £1.25mln, plus £525,000 in lieu of his cash bonus and shares to replace those he was awarded a Unilever.

It is unknown at this stage just how much Clarke will receive after being shown the exit door.

Tesco has been hitting the rough for some time. The results of its latest quater reported in June showed a 3.7% drop in underlying UK sales - significantly its worst performance in two decades.

It comes as the store entered a price war with rivals cutting the costs on a host of the most important components of the weekly shop and making enhancements to its Clubcard scheme, pledging a cheaper online service and ‘refreshing’ more than 100 stores.

Questor share tip: Tesco CEO exit is not a buying opportunity

Tesco's problems run much deeper than the man at the top and investors now face dividend cuts and asset write offs, says Questor



By John Ficenec, Questor editor

4:00PM BST 21 Jul 2014


Tesco
288.6p +3.6p
Questor says SELL



Tesco


A NEW chief executive at Tesco changes little for the UKs largest supermarket, its problems run far deeper than the man at the top and Questor would steer well clear of the shares for quite some time.


Shares in Tesco bounced by more than 2pc yesterday after Philip Clarke announced he will exit as chief executive in October, but Questor thinks this looks like nothing more than a short term relief rally.


The supermarket sector is still suffering from declining household income and lower prices from discounters. Tesco’s profits could still fall further, placing the dividend payments under threat and these two factors combined could see the share price sink closer to 200p.


The exit of Mr Clarke hints at a change in strategy for Tesco. That could mean a no holds barred price war. Tesco has held onto its market leading profit margin until now by merely tinkering at the edges of its pricing strategy. The way is now clear to go toe to toe with the discounters.


The first casualty of any escalation in the supermarket price war would be Tesco’s profits. Share prices and the value of a company are dependent on its future earnings, these need rebasing at a lower level for Tesco for the foreseeable future.

Simply taking Sainsbury’s profit margin as a guide and applying it to Tesco’s sales gives us an idea of what may lay in the future. Market consensus is for Tesco’s operating profit margin to be about 4.4pc this year, compared to Sainbury’s at about 3.5pc. Tesco is expected to achieve sales of £62.4bn in the year to February 2015, and apply an operating margin of 3.5pc that gives us £2.18bn in operating profit, some 20pc below current forecasts.

Before we get to cash that can be returned to shareholders we need to subtract about £300m in interest payments on the £6.2bn in net debt, and about £600m in tax, that leaves £1.28bn in post-tax profits, or about 16p per share.

That leaves the £1.1bn in forecast dividend payments, or 14p per share, looking exposed. Tesco has maintained a fairly consistent dividend payout ratio of 50pc of adjusted earnings, but on these number it looks like the dividend could suffer a harsh cut to about 10p.

Then there is every new chief executives favourite weapon, the kitchen sink. Dave Lewis, who joins from Unilever, will carry out a detailed review of all Tesco’s projects and in time honoured fashion he’s likely to take a different view of their ultimate value than Mr Clarke. The big areas of focus will be what the £21bn property portfolio is worth and on a smaller scale the £50m investment in restaurant chain Giraffe.

The problem for Tesco and many other retailers is that the out of town space race is over and that brings into question the value of these huge supermarket sites.

Turning around the Tesco super tanker will be no easy task. Questor is of the opinion the management change is a step in the right direction but only a fractional movement on a journey that could take the best part of a decade.

The short term message for investors is not good. Questor expects the dividend to be cut, the profits to be completely rebased at a lower level and the new chief executive to kitchen sink the strategy of the past five years.

The shares have a notional price floor at about 181p, based on a balance sheet net asset value of £14.7bn. However, that could take a hit once the new boss reviews some of the previous investments.

The shares contain way too much risk to make any reasonable investment decision as the future profits are falling and uncertain, the balance sheet is under pressure and the dividend on the chopping block. We see no reason to change our consistent recommendation. Sell.

That's why Clarke sat tight - Clarke will leave with a year’s salary, shares and pension pot worth a total of around £21m.

RIP, aged 94yrs: The man who destroyed Tesco, Karl Albrecht, the 2nd richest man in Germany and 35th richest man in the world.

(With the help of his brother, Theo Albrecht and not forgetting his father, also 'Karl' and mother too. The parents kicked off the family shop and the brothers grew it into Aldi Nord (Theo's) and Aldi Sued (Karl's). I'm not exactly sure as to which of these the Aldi we know here in the UK belongs but the inference has to be it belongs to Karl's section.



Here is his story: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/the-story-of-karl-albrecht-the-man-who-destroyed-tesco-9621946.html

Fresh doubts over Philip Clarke's strategy at Tesco were raised yesterday after the surprise resignation of the founders of the Giraffe restaurant chain acquired by the supermarket last year for almost £50 million. Only a week after Mr Clarke's abrupt ousting as chief executive, the retail giant has parted company with Juliette and Russel Joffe, who said it had been "an incredibly emotional decision to step away from our business". The news led to further questioning of Mr Clarke's strategy of trying to turn some large Tesco Extra stores into retail destinations with high street names including Giraffe family restaurants, Harris + Hoole

http://sharecast.com/news/tuesday-newspaper-round-up-lloyds-tesco-tax-inversion/21908923.html

Aldi set to overtake Waitrose as Britain's sixth largest supermarket

Aldi and Lidl accelerate, while Tesco confirmed as worst performing supermarket along with Morrisons, just a week after chief executive Philip Clarke ousted


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/epic/tsco/10997573/Aldi-set-to-overtake-Waitrose-as-Britains-sixth-largest-supermarket.html

Here's the 10 yr chart for TSCO. Pretty bad or wot?

Juicy Tomatoes.

We know Dave Lewis can sell soap. Can he really run Tesco?
Guardian.com
July 27, 2014


Dave Lewis: once of Unilever, now of Tesco. Photograph: Russell Sach

Dave Lewis has sold a lot of soap. He's done it by convincing women that they're better looking than they think they are, with Dove's "love your body" campaign.

Now the 49-year-old Yorkshireman, who joined Dove-owner Unilever as a trainee in 1987, has got to work his magic again at Tesco.

The sudden axing of Philip Clarke as Tesco chief executive last week – on the day before a glittering party planned at the Victoria & Albert Museum to celebrate his 40 years at the supermarket – was not entirely unexpected, following increasingly poor performance from Britain's biggest retailer.

But the appointment of Lewis, president of Unilever's "personal care" business – soaps and deodorants including Dove, Lynx and Sure – stunned many experienced retail experts, who view it as a big risk to appoint someone with zero retail experience to the most powerful retailing job in the county. "I don't know anyone who knows him," says veteran retail consultant Richard Hyman. "It's come completely from left field. It's a real surprise that they have gone for a non-retailer, especially because all previous Tesco bosses have been born and bred Tesco."

A senior retail executive who knows Lewis well says: "He's a marketeer, so clearly that's where [the Tesco board] think their problems are. He's measured, balanced, thoughtful – not exactly charismatic".

Clarke was a Tesco lifer, having risen through the ranks from stacking Tesco's shelves in Liverpool to the boardroom and chief executive's office in Tesco House in Cheshunt, on the outskirts of London. Lewis, until now, has been a Unilever lifer: he joined Lever Brothers (a forerunner of Unilever) as a graduate trainee straight out of Nottingham Polytechnic (now Nottingham Trent) where he read business studies. Now he will be the first outsider to head the supermarket since Jack Cohen founded Tesco 96 years ago.

Tesco will want to avoid the fate of French supermarket giant Carrefour, which also looked to a consumer goods man to lead its turnaround. Carrefour's 2009 poaching of Nestlé's Lars Olofsson as chief executive was quickly followed by five profits warnings and Olofsson was shown the door. "I think he will struggle," the retailer said of Lewis. "A Unilever lifer thrown into the blood and guts of UK grocery retail. Never been a CEO, never been a grocer – hmm."

But drastic times – Tesco last month reported its biggest drop in sales in 40 years despite Clarke injecting £1bn to revitalise stores – call for drastic measures. In this case that means "drastic Dave", as Lewis was known after cutting more than 300 jobs when he restructured Unilever UK in 2007.

Sir Richard Broadbent, Tesco's chairman, said Clarke had been "hugely successful", but that the supermarket, which is losing customers to Aldi and Lidl at the lower end of the market and Waitrose at the upper end, needed "somebody with a fresh eye and the perspective to think more laterally and take a more decisive view of the business".

Clarke was given his marching orders last Friday night, before the supermarket's board met for an emergency meeting on Sunday night, and announced his departure at 7am on Monday morning, together with another profits warning. Not only was his V&A party cancelled, he also had to pull out of the annual Tesco charity golf day at the Royal Automobile Club's Woodcote Park course near Epson Downs Racecourse. Tesco royalty past and present, including former chairmen Lord MacLaurin and Sir David Reid, played on without him.

While the timing wasn't of his choosing, Clarke told the BBC he was "resigned" to his fate. He said that even his own father, a former store manager, regularly complained about the state of his local Tesco store in Liverpool.

Broadbent had been plotting to find a replacement for Clarke since Tesco's latest dismal trading update on 4 June. At the time, Clarke told reporters: "I'm not going anywhere" but conceded that the sales figures were the worst he had seen in his four-decade career.

Broadbent and Patrick Cescau, a senior independent director at Tesco and former Unilever chief executive, called in retail headhunter Patricia Tehan, of boutique firm Lygon Group. Lewis was top of her list.

Broadbent approached Lewis directly a couple of weeks ago, and Lewis said he wanted to take the job straightaway. He told Broadbent he knew there were would be difficult challenges ahead but he couldn't imagine anyone who wouldn't be interested in running such a historic business.

In early July, Broadbent told incoming finance director Alan Stewart of Marks & Spencer, who was appointed on 10 July, that he would be reporting to Lewis, not Clarke. Clarke, who will leave in October with a near-£4m payoff, was kept in the dark.

Broadbent dismisses suggestions that Lewis doesn't understand retail, pointing out that Lewis is well-known to many senior Tesco executives "over many years in his roles at Unilever", one of Tesco's biggest suppliers.

Lewis also rejects the criticism as unfounded and points out that he's worked closely with Unilever's retail customers around the world, and understands grocers intimately. According to Lewis's camp, Tesco is full to bursting with retail talent. What it needs is a turnaround man with a strategic mind and branding experience.

Lewis is currently working from his home in Weybridge, Surrey. The speed of his appointment means he has had little time to get acquainted with the business, its staff and portfolio of 6,784 stores worldwide. He has privately admitted that he has little idea what he's going to find when he gets behind his new desk in Cheshunt, but he has spoken to Clarke and other Tesco executives.

Lewis, whose career has taken him to South America, Indonesia, the US and central Europe, was widely seen as a potential successor to Unilever chief executive Paul Polman. He turned around Unilever UK and oversaw 27 consecutive quarters of growth in Britain, but admits he never expected to serve quite such a long term at Unilever.

"I came to Unilever to do two years and then go back to my own business," he said recently. "It's 27 years later, and I've shown a startling lack of ambition to do it."

Polman doesn't doubt Lewis's ambition and didn't try and talk him out of taking on the Tesco role.

"It is very hard to say don't take this wonderful opportunity," Polman said. "It's never easy if you become chief executive, and he has a big challenge. He is out there alone and it's a very high amount of responsibility given to him."

Lewis is well liked among FTSE 100 bosses, retail and otherwise, and has become firm friends with Jeremy Darroch, the boss of BSkyB and fellow Weybridge resident. He is a non-executive director of BSkyB. Andrew Higginson, a former Tesco director who is also on the BSkyB board, said: "Dave Lewis is a great hire for Tesco. He's a very seasoned and successful manager. He's got great values and will be very strong on sorting the strategy out."

The most common adjectives used by Lewis's friends to describe him are "dynamic", "serious" and "ambitious". He also has a social conscience. Friends point out that the Dove "real beauty" campaign he deployed was as much about "strong feelings about [women's] self-esteem" as it was about money. A friend says: "It is really important to him that his brands can have a social impact. It might sound hifalutin, but it's true." Advertising campaigns under his watch have won 50 Cannes Lions awards, the ad industry's top gongs.

Lewis also has a playful and athletic side: he ran the London Marathon in four hours 18 minutes, despite having not run further than three miles before deciding to take up the challenge. "With the race sponsor being Flora – a Unilever brand – I felt I had to give it a go," he said.

A close friend and retail boss says his new found athleticism (he also competes in the Unilever triathlon) doesn't cramp his party spirits.

"I've had a few good nights out with, and the headaches to prove it," the friend said. "However, he is quite sensible and naturally quiet. He doesn't do the 'big I am'.

Lewis isn't driven by materialism, a friend says. He is not a flash car man, unlike Ferrari-driving Clarke.

That may change with the £1.25m basic salary Lewis will collect when he takes over in October. He will also be handed £525,000 in lieu of his cash bonus from Unilever.

"He's closer to character to Terry Leahy," the friend says. "He's the ordinary Yorkshire lad who got on."

Clarke wasn't the only retail boss under pressure last week. Analysts say Morrisons' chief executive, Dalton Philips, and Marks & Spencer's boss, Marc Bolland, are both vulnerable following poor trading figures from their respective businesses.

"After the Tesco decision, if Morrisons doesn't deliver in trading then Dalton is next in line – and I don't think Marc is a million miles behind," one analyst said.

Morrisons, like Tesco, is suffering from the switch to online shopping and competition from Lidl and Aldi. Last month Philips warned that the discounters could take as much as a quarter of the grocery market if supermarkets fail to "face the brutal reality" of changes in the sector.

He likened the threat posed by discounters to the UK's big four grocers to the rapid growth of low-cost airlines in the 1990s. "Nearly 50% of the UK market now flies with these discount airlines because the legacy airlines don't react fast enough," he said.

In March, Morrisons issued a profit warning and unveiled plans to spend £1bn slashing prices over the next three years in an attempt to win back customers.

The management team, which presided over a 27% fall in the company's share price in the year leading up to the AGM, faced a significant protest from shareholders last month, with 15.4% voting against Philips's re-election and 12.3% opposing the re-election of the chairman, Sir Ian Gibson. Gibson resigned ahead of the meeting.

Sir Ken Morrison, the supermarket's founder, drew applause at the meeting for his attack on Philips and Gibson, whom he blamed for the company's "disastrous" results. After listening to Philips outline his strategy to modernise the Bradford-based chain, Morrison told the chief executive: "When I left work, I chose to raise cattle. I have something like 1,000 bullocks and, having listened to your presentation, Dalton, you've got a lot more bullshit than me."

Best Chosen Article Comment: "This chap sold Lynx. If you can sell Lynx you can sell anything."

Wouldn't be the least surprised if the share price went back to 160-ish levels!

Sharecast -

Tesco and Morrisons lose market share to discounters

Fri, 01 August 2014

Price: 6,674.33 Chg: -55.78 Chg %: -0.83% Date: 16:36

Tesco and Morrisons continue to bleed market share to competitors, such as discounters Aldi and Lidl or upscale chain Waitrose.

Thus, Tesco's market share decreased to 28.3% over the last 12 weeks from 29.7% and Morrisons fell to 10.9% from 11.4%, according to the latest data from Nielsen.

On this occasion, however, Sainsbury's managed to retain its 16.4% of the market.

ASDA, which is owned by US outfit WalMart, increased its share to 16.3% from 16.2% the month before.

The above follows figures out on Tuesday from Kantar Worldpanel which showed that Tesco's sales dropped by 3.8% over 12 weeks ending on 20 July, sending its market share lower by 1.4 percentage points to 28.9%.

The difficulty in turning around the company's deteriorating competitive situation led to the ouster of its chief executive, Philip Clarke.

He was replaced by Unilever's Dave Lewis, who as Brewin Dolphin analyst Nicla di Palma said, has ample knowledge of strategy in the 'fast moving consumer goods' space but none in direct retail.

Di Palma believes Tesco will most likely respond with further significant price cuts in order to close the gap with Asda, together with heightened investment in personnel costs.

That bodes poorly for operating margins, which may drop by 150 basis points. More significant changes cannot be ruled out.

The probability of a cut to Tesco's dividend has also risen notoriously. Nonetheless, a 'fresh' perspective may be just what the retailer needs, but there will be short term pain, di Palma concludes.

As of 13:03 shares of Tesco were 1.94% lower at 253p, although Morrisons stock was edging higher by 0.3% to 169.1p.

Sharecast broker tips -A dividend cut is looking "increasingly likely" at Tesco, according to broker Brewin Dolphin which downgraded its recommendation for the supermarket stock on Friday.

"We [...] believe that the probability of a dividend cut has increased significantly (it was 14.76p in 2013/14): a cut to 10p would save the company £400m and give additional firepower for the much needed store investments."