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Battered Tesco is close to junk
TESCO could be forced to scrap its dividend and sell chunks of its global empire, after its credit rating was downgraded to one notch above junk, driving up the cost of borrowing and underlining its dire financial plight.
The warnings came after the supermarket’s profits dived 92 per cent and its chairman announced he was quitting.
The £250m hole in its accounts from bookkeeping flaws is bigger than expected at £263m, Tesco revealed yesterday, and went back earlier than the firm had previously thought.
But the one silver lining is that new chief executive Dave Lewis believes the firm is strong enough for him and his new team to spend several months in a major review of the group’s operations before they have to take radical action.