Dive Brief:
- Tesco, already reeling from an accounting scandal and falling sales, shocked the market this morning with an earnings report worse than expected and full of bad news.
- Before-tax profits at the largest retailer in the U.K. fell 91.9% in the first half of the fiscal year. The grocer also said that the accounting scandal occurred longer than previously believed and was more costly than earlier estimates.
- Tesco's chairman Sir Richard Broadbent said he would step down in the wake of the worsening situation.
Dive Insight:
When things get this bad at the world's third-largest retailer, it's tempting to search for the proverbial silver lining in the news. And for those folks prone to optimism despite the evidence, there is one little tidbit in today's news that is less than disastrous.
Tesco says that none of the people involved in the multimillion accounting fraud actually made any personal profit from their crimes. Turns out they were just trying to keep the stumbling company from looking too awful, and to keep their jobs.