Ex-Tesco Chief's Relief After FRC Clears Him Over Profit Scandal

The former finance director of Tesco (Frankfurt: 852647 - news) said he was looking forward to a return to full-time employment after being cleared by accountancy watchdogs over the retailer's 2014 profit mis-statement.

Speaking to Sky News, Laurie McIlwee said he bore no ill-feeling towards Britain's biggest retailer or its current management - but revealed that he had lost out on a new executive role two years ago when regulators launched investigations into the Tesco scandal.

Mr McIlwee was speaking in response to a judgement published by the Financial Reporting Council - and revealed by Sky News on Tuesday evening - which said "there is no realistic prospect that a tribunal would make an adverse finding in relation to [his] conduct".

The ruling leaves Mr McIlwee free to rebuild his career, since he has never been investigated by the Serious Fraud Office, which has a separate probe continuing into the Tesco profit overstatement.

In his first public comments since resigning from Tesco in the spring of 2014 amid tensions with its then chief executive, Philip Clarke, Mr McIlwee acknowledged that the last two years had been "disruptive".

"The FRC has undertaken a thorough investigation of the last three financial years that I was the group CFO at Tesco.

"Having reviewed thousands of documents, conducted interviews and taken two years to investigate, the FRC has stopped its investigation into me, because it has found no evidence of any misconduct on my part - and effectively exonerated me of any wrongdoing," he said.

Mr McIlwee added that he had been a witness to the SFO's criminal probe, launched after a whistleblower in Tesco's finance department alerted Mr Clarke's successor, Dave Lewis, to apparent irregularities in the way that supplier payments were booked.

The episode led Tesco, which has dominated British retailing for two decades, to admit that its profits had been overstated by at least ‎£263m.

The SFO's probe is said to focus largely on the months after Mr McIlwee's departure from Tesco.

Mr McIlwee had been absent from its headquarters for more than five months after his resignation when the profit overstatement emerged, because Mr Clarke had requested that he should not attend its offices during his notice period.

On Wednesday, the former finance chief said: "It has been a very disruptive two years and now that I have been exonerated I am looking forward to getting back into full-time employment.

"When I resigned after a 15 year career at Tesco in March 2014, I of course was not expecting the events that followed to happen.

"I had a new role ready to move to but understandably that was withdrawn.

"I am sure that the investigation was never a personal thing but just a natural flow of events.

"I therefore have no ill-feeling to the company or the current management."

The FRC's inquiry into PricewaterhouseCoopers, Tesco's auditor, and other individual members remains ongoing, the regulator said on Wednesday.