Tesco Paid New Boss £4m In First Six Months

Tesco (Xetra: 852647 - news) has paid new chief executive Dave Lewis £4.1m in the six months since luring him from consumer goods group Unilever (NYSE: UL - news) and tasking him with turning around the firm.

Mr Lewis received salary of £570,000, benefits of £97,000, pension of £143,000 and £3.32m in lieu of incentive awards he forfeited on leaving Unilever, according to Tesco's annual report for the year to 28 February.

He replaced Philip Clarke on 1 September.

Last year, Tesco became embroiled in an accounting scandal after a £263m profit overstatement in the first half of its financial year. Its shares hit a 14-year low.

Britain's Serious Fraud Office is investigating the accounting issue which relates to Tesco's booking of commercial income from suppliers. The Financial Reporting Council and industry watchdog, the Groceries Code Adjudicator, are also holding inquiries.

Last month, Tesco posted an annual loss of £6.4bn , one of the biggest in British corporate history, and warned investors there could be more pain to come.

Mr Lewis is pursuing efficiency measures, cutting costs and selling assets to mend the group's finances and fight back from years of declining market share and debt-rating downgrades.

Mr Clarke was sacked last July after 40 years at Tesco, including three and a half as CEO.

In February, Tesco made a termination payment of £1.2m to Mr Clarke, but said that, should it be determined in the future that there was gross misconduct, it would seek recovery of the payment.

The annual report revealed Clarke (Toronto: CKI.TO - news) 's remuneration for the 2014-15 year was £764,000.