Tesco: The Numbers Behind Its Struggles

"Every little helps," so Tesco (Xetra: 852647 - news) says, but its financial results bring into focus a series of figures which demonstrate not only its problems but also its power in the UK market.

:: Debt

Tesco's debt now outstrips the market value of the company. Total (Swiss: FP.SW - news) debt stood at £21.7bn, its results showed, which is £2.7bn more than the value of its shares.

:: Loss

Tesco's statutory pre-tax loss of £6.38bn for 2014/15 is the sixth-biggest in UK corporate history. The biggest was announced by RBS in 2008 (£24.1bn), followed by Vodafone (£21.8bn in 2006), Vodafone again (£13.5bn in 2002), Lloyds (£8.5bn in 2005) and Cable & Wireless (£6.5bn in 2003).

:: Writedowns

The loss is mainly blamed on £7bn in one-off charges, mostly non-cash, reflecting Tesco's challenges and declining profits.

The bulk of the £7bn is broken down as follows: £3.8bn on a writedown in the value of trading stores, a £925m cost of halting creation of 49 new stores and £878m from projects across the business including its investment with China Resources (HKSE: 0291-OL.HK - news) .

:: Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news)

Since its peak in 2008, the Tesco share price has fallen 52%, wiping £20.9bn off its market value.

:: Market Share

Tesco remains at the top of the pile in terms of industry sales but its market share has fallen 10% from its 2007 high.

One in every £10 that was spent at Tesco then is now spent at a rival. From its peak market share in of 31.6% in December 2007, its share of the UK grocery market had fallen to 28.4% at the end of March.

:: Margin

Tesco's figures lay bare the effort it is making to compete better in the price war with UK rivals, particularly the discounters.

Its UK trading profit margin, the amount it makes on sales, stood at just 1.07% in the financial year. It represented a fall of 394 basis points on the previous fiscal year.

:: Sales

Tesco still gets more customers through its doors than Aldi (5.3% market share), Waitrose (5.1%), the Co-op (6.0%) and Morrisons (10.9%) put together.

It had sales of £69.7bn in 2014/15, that equates to £191m a day, £8m an hour, £133,000 per minute or £2,209 per second.

:: Stores

Tesco’s UK stores represent only a third (34.3% to be precise) of their worldwide stores. Its international operations in Asia and Europe also endured steep falls in trading profit, by 18% and 32% respectively.

:: Jobs

The group is believed to be planning to axe an estimated 6,000 posts - mainly a result of a simplification of operations that could result in an entire layer of management being stripped out.

:: Pension

Tesco has agreed a contribution of £270m a year to its pension fund after a valuation revealed a deficit of £2.8bn at the end of March last year.