Tesco Faces New Legal Action Worth Billions

Tesco (Xetra: 852647 - news) is facing more possible legal action from shareholders, potentially worth billions of pounds, over the retailer's £263m profit mis-statement.

A group calling itself Tesco Shareholder Claims Ltd (TSC), supported by US legal firm Scott & Scott, said it planned to seek compensation under a co-ordinated action following the slump in the supermarket chain's share price last autumn.

The legal move, reported by Sky News last night , is aimed at soliciting interest from investors, including pension funds.

The statement said: "A permanent destruction of value has occurred and had the accounting irregularities not taken place the share price, and value of the company, would today be materially higher.

"TSC expects the claim to be in the region of 50p-70p per share.

"Tesco Plc has in excess of eight billion shares listed."

A similar case is being prepared by Stewart's Law, a top City firm.

If they proceed, they are expected to claim compensation for shareholders on the basis that Tesco allegedly breached the Financial Services and Markets Act by over-stating its profits.

Chairman of the claims group, John Bradley, said: "Tesco is one of the widest held stocks in the UK and this loss has hit pension funds and investors across the UK and beyond.

"We look forward to bringing this claim to court."

Another case brought by a Texan pension fund which had invested in Tesco's US depositary shares became public last October.

The latest claim, which is expected to take months to assemble, will again underline the scale of the task facing Dave Lewis, Tesco's chief executive, and John Allan, who is about to take over as the company's chairman.

Although recent grocery industry data has hinted at the beginnings of a revival for Tesco, the commercial and reputational crises triggered by its poor trading performance and profits over-statement are likely to take years to rectify.

Tesco is engaged in a huge redundancy programme to cut several thousand jobs with the aim of saving hundreds of millions of pounds annually.

The company's £263m profit over-statement occurred because of inaccurate booking of revenue from suppliers, into which the Serious Fraud Office has launched a formal criminal investigation.

The Groceries Code Adjudicator and the Financial Reporting Council are undertaking separate inquiries, while the Financial Conduct Authority ceased its own probe when the SFO became involved.

In addition to the redundancy programme, Mr Lewis has outlined proposals to relocate Tesco's head office, close dozens of stores and terminate its defined benefit pension scheme in an effort to save costs.

Tesco declined to comment on the launch of the latest legal action.